RESET: BRICK-BY-BRICK

Modi and Xi decide to reset ties based on "mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual sensitivity"

- V SUDARSHAN

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday took the first formal step towards normalising ties between India and China on the sidelines of the BRICS summit at Kazan where they had their first structured meeting in five years.

The meeting underscored the enormous distance that has to be traversed before bilateral ties can be termed to have become normal, which is an odd word to describe ties between the two Asian giants which have been anything but.

For that to happen, Prime Minister Modi listed three principles that had to form the bedrock for the way forward: "mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual sensitivity."

All three have been conspicuously lacking in the last four and a half years. He said those should "continue to be the basis of relations between the two countries."

The meeting in Kazan, where they met with their teams, had given them the opportunity to discuss the issues he had flagged and he was confident that they would discuss them with an open mind and constructively.

He made the point that the importance of India-China relations "is not just for our people. Our relations are also important for global peace, stability and progress."