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China Premier Li Keqiang Pledges Better Ties With India
BBC NEWS, INDIA
May 20, 2013: China's Premier Li Keqiang has pledged to build trust with India where he is meeting his counterpart Manmohan Singh after a recent flare-up in border tensions. Premier Li said the purpose of his visit was "to increase mutual trust and co-operation and face the future". "World peace... cannot be a reality without strategic co-operation between India and China," he said.
The two neighbors are the world's two most populous countries.
Monday's talks are expected to involve trade ties and other bilateral issues.
The Chinese leader arrived in Delhi on Sunday in the first stop of his maiden foreign trip since taking office. On his arrival, Premier Li said his decision to choose India for his first foreign visit since taking office "indicates the great importance Beijing attaches to its relations" with Delhi.
At an informal meeting on Sunday night, Mr Singh told Mr Li that a recent military standoff on the Himalaya border could affect relations between the two countries.
A decades-long border dispute flared up last month after India accused Chinese troops of crossing the countries' de facto frontier. The dispute over the territory in the Ladakh region has dogged the two countries since the 1950s.
A BBC correspondent in Delhi says both sides, however, are keen to ensure that the border spat does not derail a general warming in relations between the neighbors and officials say trade ties are expected to dominate the talks.
China is already one of India's top trading partners and both countries have already agreed a new $100bn (£65bn) bilateral trade target for 2015.
During his three-day visit in India, Premier Li is also expected to meet Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha [the lower house of Indian parliament] Sushma Swaraj.
He is also scheduled to address university students in Delhi and business leaders in Mumbai, India's financial capital, before traveling on to Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.
