Wen's visit benefits South Asia
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Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India and Pakistan from Dec 15 to Dec 19 has reaped satisfactory benefits for China's diplomatic relations with these bordering countries.
The South Asian trip achieved a wide range of positive results and made people in the two host countries understand the tangible benefits of China's rapid development.
It not only helped China and India create guidelines for a win-win relationship in the coming years but also reinforced the foundation of China's all-weather strategic partnership with Pakistan.
India is the only country that has territorial disputes with China. In the context of an accelerated rise of both countries, the West often makes an issue of, or exaggerates, the so-called China-India competition to sow discord between the Asian giants.
That highlights the importance of a harmonious coexistence between Beijing and New Delhi, which is key to determining whether Asian ambitions to create a harmonious continent can be realized.
The Chinese premier's visit came at a time when both countries were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic ties and will enrich the substance of bilateral economic and trade cooperation.
Both countries vowed to increase their bilateral trade volume to $150 billion by 2015. The trade value is expected to exceed $60 billion this year, and China will overtake the United States to become India's largest trading partner.
Premier Wen promised to increase China's investment in India, and both countries agreed to open their markets to each other.
These moves will increase the cross-border flow of personnel, logistics and information, and cultivate a solid economic, non-governmental and cultural foundation for better relations.
Expanding exchanges will help China and India reach the point where both benefit from cooperation and would suffer from - and therefore, will avoid - confrontation.
Ever-growing economic and trade cooperation over the past two decades, following the normalization of ties, has proven to be bilateral relations' largest driving force and stabilizing factor. Shared development will cause mutual interests to trump confrontations.
The overlap of their strategic opportunities is also expected to prevent Beijing and New Delhi from moving too close to rivalry.
