India-China 2nd Informal Summit- Mamallapuram Summit

• 14 Oct 2019

Recently, the Prime Minister of India and the President of the People's Republic of China held their Second Informal Summit in Chennai (Mamallapuram), India.

• The recent Mamallapuram Summitt has begun a “New Era of Cooperation” between India and China.
• First India- China informal summit invoked the ‘Wuhan spirit’, whereas the second informal India-China summit has called for ‘Chennai Connect.
• Informal summits allow discussion on wide-ranging issues, they are not particularly purpose-specific, and are sometimes considered to play bigger roles in diplomatic dialogue than formal exchanges.
  
  • It also acts as supplementary exchanges to annual summits.

Key Points

• Reiteration of the first Informal Summit in Wuhan (2018)
  
  • Both the countries reiterated the consensus reached during the first informal Summit in Wuhan to consider India and China as factors for stability in the current international landscape.
  • It also emphasized upon managing the differences and not to allow differences on any issue to become disputes.
• Economic Development:
  
  • A High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue mechanism to be established to enhance trade and commercial relations
  • The manufacturing partnership is to be established to encourage mutual investments in identified sectors.
• Multilateral trading system
  
  • India-China agreed to support and strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system.
  • Also promised to work together for open and inclusive trade arrangements to maintain inclusive international order.
• Strategic Issues:
  
  • Boundary issues to be solved on the lines of a mutually-agreed framework based on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles that were agreed by the two sides in 2005.
  • The strategic communication to be enhanced to maximize usage of high-level exchanges like dialogue mechanisms.
• Terrorism:
  
  • Both countries recognized the joint efforts to ensure that the international community strengthens the framework against training and financing terrorist groups throughout the world and on a non-discriminatory basis.
• Sister State Relations:
  
  • Considering the age-old commercial as well as maritime linkages, both the countries agreed to establish Sister-State Relations between Tamil Nadu and Fujian Province.
    
    • An academy to study links between Mahabalipuram and Fujian province on the lines of the experience between Ajanta and Dunhuang to be established.
• 70 years of India-China relations:
  
  • The year 2020 will mark the 70^th anniversary of the establishment of India-China diplomatic relations, to celebrate the event two countries will be organizing 70 activities to emphasize the historical connection between the two civilizations.
  • Also the year 2020 will be designated as the Year of India-China Cultural and People to People Exchanges.
  • Being important contemporary civilizations in the world, efforts will be taken in order to foster cultural understanding between the two countries.

Why Mamallapuram is chosen?

• India has chosen Mamallapuram as a symbol of India’s ‘soft power’.
• Mamallapuram is an important town of the erstwhile Pallava dynasty that ruled in parts of South India from 275 CE to 897 CE.
• The name Mamallapuram got distorted during the British era to Mahabalipuram and thus it is also known as Mahabalipuram.
• The city of Mamallapuram was founded by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I in the 7^th century AD.
  
  • The name Mamallapuram derives from Mamallan, or “great warrior”, a title by which the Pallava King Narasimhavarman I was known.
• It is renowned for its architecture, widely admired across the world.
• Mamallapuram and the Pallava dynasty are also historically relevant, for the earliest recorded security pact between China and India (in the early 8^th century) that involved a Pallava king (Rajasimhan, or Narasimha Varma II), from whom the Chinese sought help to counter Tibet.

Wuhan Spirit:

• Wuhan Spirit is in line with the five principles of peaceful coexistence (Panchsheel) jointly advocated by China and India in the 1950s.
• Wuhan Spirit highlighted
  
  • To form the "backbone" of economic globalization, and they should jointly make positive contributions to global peace and development.
  • To cooperate, for the first time ever, on a joint project in Afghanistan.
  • China has indicated that India’s refusal to join the Belt and Road Initiative will not come in the way of economic cooperation.

Fujian Province

• It is located on the southeastern coast of China, situated opposite the island of Taiwan.
• Fujian (meaning “Happy Establishment”) is one of the country’s smaller provinces.

Source: PIB