China welcomes PM Modi's speech at Davos, looks forward to working with India

China welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Davos speech against protectionism as being “as dangerous as terrorism,” saying that the two countries can fight this practice together.

Modi, while addressing the annual summit of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, compared protectionism to terrorism and talked about the sever concerns facing the world, including terrorism and climate change.

“Many countries are becoming inward focused and globalisation is shrinking and such tendencies can’t be considered lesser risk than terrorism or climate change,” he had said.

“I noticed that Prime Minister Modi made some remarks on protectionism and his remarks showed that globalisation is the trend of the times and serves the interests of all the countries including developing countries and the fight against protectionism and promoting globalisation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

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She further mentioned that China looks forward to working with India and other countries to strengthen globalisation process for the benefit of all countries. 

“China and India share a lot of common interests. China would like to enhance coordination and cooperation with all countries including India to steer the economic globalisation towards benefiting world economic growth and well-being of all countries,” Hua said.

Asked whether the common position of India and China in opposing protectionism could help improve strained bilateral ties, Hua said “Our position is clear. India is a big neighbour of China. As the two largest developing countries and as two close neighbours, of course we hope that we can maintain steady development of bilateral relations. It serves the interests of our two sides”.

“We look forward to working with India to enhance our communication and our mutual trust, properly handle our differences and ensure sound and steady development of our bilateral ties. I believe this is the aspiration of the people of our countries,” she said.

Also read: India to become $5 trillion economy by 2025: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday addressed the plenary session of the 48th edition of the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland.

Modi is the first Indian prime minister to attend Davos summit in 20 years.

(With PTI inputs)