SCO summit in China stands for 'multi-polarity': Bambawale

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India today said the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China stands for "multi-polarity" and it conveys the message that big countries can peacefully coexist despite differences in their systems.

The 18th SCO Summit, scheduled for June 9 and 10 in Qingdao, Shandong province, will be attended by a host of world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We hope the summit will be very successful. We are confident it will be very successful. We know that China will host very successful Qingdao SCO summit. We are very much looking forward to it," Indian Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale said.

This is the first SCO summit after India and Pakistan were admitted as regular members last year.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

On the Shanghai spirit and outcome of the summit, Bambawale said, "the Shanghai spirit is very important. It stands for multi-polarity. For countries with different systems to live together and to have peaceful coexistence".

"We believe that the message which will come out of the summit is that important big countries which are members of the SCO can peacefully coexist despite differences in their systems and that they can work together," he said in an interview to China's state-run CCTV.

"Another point to come out is that unilateralism is not necessary in today's world. Multi-lateralism and learning to live with each other is the important message which will come from Qingdao," he added.

Bambawale said that post-Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi, India and China will work on their differences and commonalities to ensure that the two countries prosper and progress together.

The informal summit between Modi and Xi in April at the Chinese city of Wuhan was an "effort by the leaders of India and China, two large countries with huge populations, to talk to each other, understand each other to promote cooperation between the two countries," Bambawale said.

"Most importantly it (the summit) was strategic communication between the leaders of the two countries," he said.

"As a result of their discussions in Wuhan, the two leaders have arrived at certain consensus. The first and most important consensus is that India and China are partners in progress and in economic development, he said.

"Second most important consensus was that many more commonalities between the two countries than differences. They will work together on these commonalities," he said.

"Of course, there are some differences between us. But We will work at the differences to ensure that the two countries will progress and prosper together. We are not going to be away from each other and apart from each other. We are going to do this together," he said.

On the success of Indian films in China and promotion of people-to-people contacts, the envoy said India and China should have more people-to-people exchanges. One of the ways to that is through movies.

"We are happy to see that Indian Bollywood movies are becoming popular. The important point is by seeing the movies Chinese people will come to understand India better. By understanding India better there will be more mutual trust between people of India and China, he said.

"Similarly, we want to see more Chinese movies also so that we can understand China better.

"Another aspect both our governments should work very hard is for building people-to-people cooperation, that is tourism. We must expand tourism between the two countries with more flights and more tourists going to each other countries. That way we will understand each other better and trust each other more," he added.