'Li's India visit helped build mutual trust in bilateral ties'

China today said Premier Li Keqiang's India visit has helped build mutual trust between the two countries as he held "candid" talks with the Indian leadership without skirting differences on issues of concern to New Delhi like the boundary question and trade imbalance.
"We believe his visit to India further built up our strategic mutual trust", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing while answering a question on the major takeaways of Li's visit to India and Pakistan.
"During his visit to India, Premier Li did not avoid differences between the two sides on some issues", he said.

"On the contrary, Li had candid discussions with his Indian counterpart and made clear our strategic intentions, for example the issues Indians are concerned (about) like the boundary question, cross border rivers, trans border rivers, resources and trade imbalance", Li said.
"The visit offered us a fresh strategic perspective to look at China-India relations", he said, stating that it will be very difficult to find two major countries that have so much in common as China and India.
"China-India cooperation has gone far beyond their bilateral relations. Their cooperation is good news to the two peoples as well as Asia and beyond", Hong said.

"When you look around the globe, it will be very difficult for you to find two major countries that have so much in common as China and India. As (a) matter of fact, China and India are strategic partners in nature. I think such a strategic significance has always been ignored by people", he said.
The visit also helped the two countries to "further expand their strategic consensus", Hong added.
"The two sides agreed to make consensus the dominant element of their relations. The two sides stressed in their Joint Statements that (the) two countries are partners instead of rivals. Two sides treat each other as an opportunity instead of threat", he said.