Ties with India to stabilise: Chinese envoy

India and China have reached a consensus on maintaining stability in their relationship and avoiding the “ups and downs” that have characterised ties in recent years, outgoing Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui said on Wednesday.

Luo, who has been promoted as vice minister in the foreign ministry responsible for Asia, is expected to leave India at the end of the month. He played a key role in putting bilateral relations back on an even keel after the military standoff between India and China at Doklam in the tri-junction with Bhutan in 2017.

“One major feature is that such types of important bilateral relations always see ups and downs. So we have a consensus...with the Indian government on how to make this relation stable and break the up and down circle,” he told the media on the margins of a seminar hosted by the Chinese embassy.

The India-China relationship is important for both countries and the leadership of the two sides had reached consensus on ensuring that ties “continue to move in a healthy and stable direction”, Luo said.

India-China relations improved after the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year. The top leaders of the two sides are expected to hold the second informal summit in India later this year. In 2020, the two sides will mark the 70th anniversary of bilateral relations.

Luo referred to the Doklam face-off and said “something going wrong” between two big neighbours is “as natural as two brothers of a family living under one roof having issues”. The two sides did not ignore the matter and instead worked together to resolve it and this ensured bilateral ties “were back on the normal track”, he added. “That is my job and the two leaders of both countries did a great job and provided strategic guidelines,” he said.

Despite the border problem between the two nations, Luo said it was important to maintain peace along the boundary.