China doesn't consider India a strategic rival: Ambassador Li Jiming
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming has emphasised that China never takes India as a "strategic rival", rather they consider India to be a good neighbour.
"I would say, we never take India as a strategic rival. We still hope that the China-India relationship can be improved. So, never imagine that China would like to have any hostile or rival attitude to India. That's not the case," said the envoy.
He made the remarks while responding to a question at an online symposium titled "Bangladesh-China Relations: Prognosis for the Future" hosted by the Cosmos Foundation and premiered on its Facebook page on Thursday evening.
Cosmos Foundation Chairman Enayetullah Khan delivered the opening remarks at the event while Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, renowned scholar-diplomat and adviser on foreign affairs to the last caretaker government, chaired the session.
Ambassador (retd) Tariq A Karim, CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, former Foreign Secretary Shamsher M Chowdhury, Assistant Researcher of the Institute for International Studies at Yunnan University Dr Zou Yingmeng, Assistant Research Fellow at China Institute of International Studies Dr Ning Shengnan, former Ambassador Serajul Islam and Dhaka University Professor Dr Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir comprised the panel of discussants.
The Chinese Ambassador mentioned a number of platforms where the two countries are working together. "We're still working very, very well together, very closely."
"Any Chinese intellectual, who is well-educated, would have a special feeling. A good feeling, towards India - that is something untold publicly probably," he said.
Enayetullah Khan fondly recalled interviewing the present Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing back in 2004 (when he was the Vice-Foreign Minister) when the minister talked about new foreign policy which is good relations with all neighbours.
"I asked, where does Bangladesh stand? His immediate answer was – Bangladesh could be the bridge between India and China," Khan said, going down memory lane.
As one of the discussants raised the Quad issue -- the 4-country alliance between the USA, Australia, Japan and India that is seen as anti-Beijing -- the Ambassador said "the first foreign policy lesson I learned is that Bangladesh adheres to the idea of 'friendship to all and malice to none.' So, I have full confidence that Bangladesh will not be part of that small clique," he said.
"But when I was asked if you would like to see or do you think this is a good idea for Bangladesh to do so, of course, I would say no. What else can you expect from me? Should I say yes? That would have been ridiculous. So that is the story about Quad," Ambassador Li added.
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