Sonia Gandhi spoke at the Tsinghua University in Beijing, on 27th Morning. I was there to know what she had to say on the two nations and their levels of “Optimism and Cooperation”.
She had lots on the subject showing the direction in which India is strengthening its relations with China:
Here she goes:
…Prime Minister Wen Jiabao put it succinctly and if I may so, with the great empirical precision that China is noted for, and I quote—”during the past 2200 years, for about 99% of the time we have devoted to friendly cooperation between our two countries.”…
…”l see optimism in both India and China today; optimism about the progress our countries can make, optimism about realizing our goals of development, optimism about the levels of cooperation we can reach, optimism…
For the rest: Click address-of-congress-president.doc
Well it’s a predictable comment but well worth re-iterating. I find it fascinating te makeup of the two governments – Sonia Gandhi is Catholic, the PM is Sikh, and the Minister of Finance Hindu. China’s is all communist, and I think they may lack a broader perspective. The China / India issue has much more to it in terms of secularism versus atheism than it does democracy vs. communism. The former is by far the more interesting and far reaching subject in terms of bilateral development and national stability.