Could India-China border row be calmed by finding common ground on Covid-19?

Name: Indians burn effigies of Chinese President Xi Jinping over deadly border clash
Uploaded: 2020-07-07T05:11:36.000Z
Duration: 5 min 2 s
Description: Indians burn effigies of Chinese President Xi Jinping over deadly border clash

India remains ravaged by the coronavirus at a time when anti-China sentiment is an obstacle to working together on the issue

The two neighbours have an ideal forum for cooperation in the BRICS bloc of nations, although its members have other priorities, observers say

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi show unity last October, but their countries have clashed in recent weeks. Photo: DPA

Eduardo Baptista

Published: 1:11pm, 7 Jul 2020Updated: 10:18pm, 7 Jul 2020

As tensions between China and India have escalated over their worst border crisis in over half a century, their ability to cooperate on the coronavirus pandemic has suffered, despite the health crisis being a potential starting point to reset relations.

The neighbours on Sunday agreed to a disengagement of troops on their disputed Himalayan border, but the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in clashes last month fuelled anti-China sentiment in India that has included destruction of Chinese products and burning of images of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Widespread calls for a boycott of all Chinese goods led the Indian government to ban 59 Chinese apps.

Meanwhile, India on Sunday surpassed Russia to become the country reporting the third-most Covid-19 cases, with more than 697,000, despite introducing China-style lockdowns as a preventive measure. Having contained its own initial outbreak, China last month reported a fresh cluster linked to a food market in Beijing, which prompted local travel bans and lockdowns, after which infections fell.

“I think both countries need to find other channels that are not so political and start cooperating,” Niu Haibin, a deputy director at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said. “Both countries’ foreign ministries can call for public health cooperation in the spirit of humanitarianism.”

05:02

Indians burn effigies of Chinese President Xi Jinping over deadly border clash

Niu said the struggles India has faced in containing Covid-19 could offer Chinese diplomats an opportunity to steer the neighbours’ relations in a more positive direction.

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