India, China should take steps to mitigate language barrier

China and India should take steps to mitigate the communication barrier between people of the two countries to expand trade and bilateral ties between the two emerging economies, a Chinese official said today.

Responding to concerns of the Indian business community that language was a barrier in fostering trade ties and in settling legal disputes, especially in case of small and medium enterprises, Niu Qingbao, the Chinese consulate general in Mumbai, said that Indians should learn Mandarin and Chinese citizens should learn English.

"China is keen to facilitate Mandarin learning classes in India with a view to foster better ties," he told the business community at an interaction organised by the Bangalore Chambers of Industry and Commerce.
Though some Chinese teachers are keen to come to India and teach the language, they face hurdles in terms of obtaining visas, he said.

"Many a times visa matters take six to eight months. With Chinese teachers having to seek leave from their universities to come down to teach here," Qingbao said, calling for easing of visa regulations.

He said that the Chinese government has started teaching English at primary school level and a lot of resources are being spent to teach the language.

Training in English is also being provided by social organisations, he said.

Niu said that long-term relationships can be built between people of the two countries through an "education initiative".

There are nearly 7,000 Indian students studying in China and 3,000 Chinese students studying in India in various sectors. There should be initiatives to encourage more students to study in the other country's universities, he said.

Replying to concerns of the legal fraternity over lack of access to English translation of Chinese legal system, he said currently some of the laws were being translated into English.

There was also need for both governments to invest resources to make their legal professionals understand the legal system of the other country, the official said.

Legal exchange programmes and legal delegation interaction on both sides could act as an important link to overcome the barrier, he said.

Addressing questions on the durability of low cost Chinese goods, Niu said that "Chinese products on the whole are low priced with reliability. Some products were however not as high quality as we would like it to be".

However, he said the popular perception among Chinese about Indian businessmen were they were good at bargaining. Margins in Chinese manufacturing were very low. If price is not good, they will think of other ways to lower cost, he said.

He also said that in the home appliances market in India, Chinese goods were sold by Indian buyers of the goods with an Indian manufacturer tag.

Responding to concerns of the business community that the pricing of castings supplied by Chinese were no longer competitive unlike the past and were highly priced, Niu said that the supply of iron ore was monopolised by two companies in Australia and one in Brazil. With the iron prices skyrocketing, it was not possible for Chinese companies to cut down on products if the raw material prices were high.

He said diplomatic ties between India and China had completed six decades and it wa now growing to be more "mature, stabilised and promising".

The two economies were mutually complementary. "Both need each other in IT industry. China needs India's software and India needs China's software". If both join hands, it could be a "win-win" situation for both, he said.

India could also tap the rich expertise of China in infrastructure building and could tap the Chinese market in terms of pharmaceuticals and IT.

Niu also outlined the progress made by China in various sectors over the years and its improvement in the average life expectancy, literacy levels, among others, and its goals for the next five years.