India and China should view each other as “partners, not rivals” and “opportunity instead of threat”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Sunday.

Wang, at his annual press conference on the sidelines of the Chinese parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), said both countries should stick to the direction set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping to improve relations without interference.

Modi and Xi had a successful meeting in Tianjin last August, Wang said. “Building on the fresh start enabled by their Kazan meeting in 2024, the Tianjin summit brought about further improvement in China-India relations,” he added.

“We are heartened to see re-energised interactions at all levels, a new record in bilateral trade, and closer people-to-people exchanges. All this has brought tangible benefits to the two peoples,” he said.

On the future course of the ties, Wang said both countries “must maintain the correct strategic perception of each other as partner rather than rival, and opportunity instead of threat”.

“Both sides also must uphold good-neighbourliness and friendship, and jointly safeguard peace and stability in the border areas and focus on development,” he said.

“As each other’s important neighbours and members of the Global South, China and India enjoy profound civilisational ties and share extensive common interests,” Wang said. “Mutual trust and cooperation is beneficial to the development of the two countries, while division and confrontation is detrimental to the rejuvenation of Asia,” the Chinese foreign minister said.

The two sides should follow the direction set by leaders and remove interference, he said without elaborating.

He said India and China should support each other hosting BRICS summits. While India is set to host the summit this year, China is due to host the summit in 2027.

BRICS which originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, later expanded with the admission of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.

India-China relations, which were frozen for five years due to military standoff in eastern Ladakh, began the process of normalisation following two summits between Modi and Xi at Kazan in Russia in 2024 followed by a second meeting on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin last year.

Both sides resumed visa and flight services besides initiating a series of measures to normalise their relations.