It is a great privilege for me to be invited here to make my remarks about China-India relations.

We all know that Rabindra Bharati University is one of the leading universities in West Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore was a most eminent leader of Bengal Renaissance, and I wish the students from this University named after him will also play a leading role in the future process of India's rise.

The Sino-Indian relationship is one of the most important bilateral relations of China and we have been nurturing and cherishing it very carefully. We know that there are still some uneasy problems between our two countries which will take time to be resolved. And we also know that as two immediate neighbors, two most populous nations, and two rising powers, China and India have only one choice for the future, that is to be friends and partners in mutual progress. Therefore, "look forward" has been our basic attitude and we have tried our best to ensure that the pending issues will not get in the way of developing the overall relations. There has been a consensus in this regard between the leadership of our two countries and, thus, great progress has been made in our bilateral relations in the last ten years.

According to my observation, the past decade has been the best period in the modern history of Sino-Indian relations, because a series of turning points for the better occurred in the last ten years.

One, both China and India have officially stated that they do not regard the other as a security threat. Exactly ten years ago, Mr. Jaswant Singh, the then Indian External Affairs Minister categorically stated during his Beijing visit in 1999 that India did not regard China as a security threat. Subsequently the Indian Government has reiterated the same many times. My understanding is that the basic consensus that both China and India do not consider each other as a security threat has paved the way for the following ten years' development of bilateral relations.

Two, China has been providing hydrological information to India on Brahmaputra River since 2002.

Three, direct flights between China and India, including Kolkata, have been operated since 2002.

Four, China recognized Sikkim as a part of India in 2003 and at the same time, India reiterated that the Indian side recognizes that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People's Republic of China and India does not allow Tibetans to engage in anti-China political activities in India.

Five, a new mechanism of Special Representatives for boundary settlement was established in 2003.

Six, joint military exercises by the Navies and Armies of the two countries have been conducted several times since 2003.

Seven, Sino-Indian Strategic and Cooperative Partnership was officially established in 2005.

Eight, border trade through Nathu La Pass was resumed in 2006.

Nine, both Consulates General of India and China were set up in Guangzhou, South China and Kolkata, East India in 2008 respectively.

Ten, for the first time in history, China became India's largest trading partner in the calendar year 2008; the bilateral trade reached 51.8 billion US dollars. Ten years ago, the figure of China-India trade in 1998 was only 1.9 billion US dollars. This is a nearly 30-fold increase in just ten years. Should we not call this a great story of success!

And eleven, also the first time in history, India has become the biggest overseas market for Chinese companies undertaking contract projects. Last year, Chinese companies were awarded contracts worth 12.9 billion US dollars for various construction projects in India.

Now I have presented a general picture of current China-India relations. But we should not stop here. We need to put the progress into perspective.

Since Rabindra Bharati University is a culture university, so I would like to say a few words about the historical and cultural background of China-Indian relations.

We all know that the Chinese and Indian people enjoy a long lasting friendship of over 2000 years. In ancient times, the Chinese named India as the "Western Heaven" and our ancestors braved hardships, climbed mountains and crossed rivers to make their pilgrimage to the holy land of Lord Buddha. The spread of Buddhism from India to China, then from China to other East Asian countries constitutes a brilliant chapter of the ancient history of cross-civilization exchanges. Buddhism was accepted in China and played an important role, together with China's indigenous Confucianism and Taoism, in shaping the Chinese civilization.

Buddhism was created in India at the same time when Confucianism and Taoism were emerging in China. It was roughly 500 years before the Christ. In that period of time, communication and exchanges between this subcontinent and West Asia and the Mediterranean area was much more developed than that between South Asia and East Asia. But the historical route of Buddhism spreading was eastward rather than westward. If we set monotheism as a criterion, then we would find that all the main religions founded in the West World belong to one group with the common features of one god, one prophet, one book and one center, while all the indigenous religions in India and China belong to another group of the East World. So I may say that even in the ancient times the Chinese and Indians had established a strong feeling of closeness in their cultures.

In modern times, in their struggle for national independence and people's liberation, the Indians and Chinese sympathized with each other, showed understanding to each other, and supported each other. The great son of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore, inspired the Chinese intellectuals intensely in the early decades of the last century and became an icon of liberty, progress and creation in China. He visited China in 1924 for nearly two months and gave a big push to the New Culture Movement, the Chinese Enlightenment. During the Second World War an Indian Medical Mission Team was dispatched to China by the Indian National Congress. We in China will never forget Dr. Kotnis, one of the five doctors of the team, who sacrificed his young life for the liberation cause of the Chinese people.

After all, I think I can say that it was not only because of his personal preference when the great Indian leader Pandit Nehru was writing his book "The Discovery of India" in 1944, he mentioned China numerous times. And it was not a historical misunderstanding when people in India and China were chanting Hindi Cheeni Bhai Bhai in the early 1950s.

Now let us come back to the contemporary China-India relations. We are in the era of globalization where economic ties constitute the basis of overall relations between countries. My understanding that past decade has been the best period in the modern history of Sino-Indian relations is also mainly from the economic point of view.

China and India are two of the largest economies and both have established their comprehensive industry systems. But at the same time, the economic strengths of our two countries are very much complementary to each other.

India is strong in knowledge-based industries, especially in IT and pharmaceuticals. I have a List of India's Top Ten Software Companies and have found that six out of the ten have their business bases in China. These are: TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Satyam, MphasiS and NIIT. And I have another List of India's Top Ten Pharmaceutical Companies, and have found that five out of the ten have their factories or laboratories in China. These are: Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Aurobindo, Lupin Laboratories and Sun Pharmaceutical.

China is strong in manufacturing and infrastructure and many Chinese companies are doing business in these fields in India. Here I would like to take the power sector as an outstanding example of economic cooperation between our two countries.

Indian economic growth has been on fast track these years and the issue of shortage of electricity needs to be addressed in a very urgent manner. The Government of India has set up an ambitious target with a time frame of ten years. That is: by year 2012, all electricity demand will be fully met; per capita availability of electricity will be increased to over 1000 units; and accordingly new electricity generation capacity of 100,000 MW will be added during the period 2002-12.

Now I am sure that this target will be achieved on time or even before the due date. One of the reasons is that the Electricity Act 2003 of India has opened the door for international competition and China's major power equipment producers and power plant builders have been quite active in the Indian market since then. Now Chinese companies have obtained many contracts for power equipment and EPC power projects. According to an incomplete statistics, over 30,000 MW of equipment will be supplied by Chinese companies in the coming few years, which accounts for over 30 per cent of the capacity addition target of 100,000 MW.

This is a new phenomenon in the history of China-India economic relations and is a win-win situation.

For China, after 20 years' hard efforts, its capacity of producing power equipment is now much larger than the domestic demand. Last year, 133,000 MW of equipment was manufactured in China, which was nearly as much as the total installed power capacity of 147,000 in India at the same time. So to maintain and develop the capabilities of power equipment manufacturing, Chinese power industry has to go abroad. They have found many large markets in the world, but the Indian market is one of the largest.

For India, to achieve the target of addition capacity of 100,000 MW by 2012, international cooperation is very much needed and China is a natural choice for many reasons: one, nowadays in the world, only China and India are two large economies which are still relying mainly on coal-fired power generation, and in this field major Chinese companies have the latest know-how; two, Chinese equipment is reasonably cheap but its quality is comparably good; and three, because of their large capacity, Chinese companies can deliver goods on time.

Here I sincerely wish that day will come soon, when there is no power cut in Indian summer, and every household has access to electricity in villages. Then we will jointly celebrate south-south cooperation--from principle to practice.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm not a believer, but I do believe in China-India friendship.

I believe that the Chinese people will never forget that Chinese culture is deeply indebted to ancient Indian civilization.

I believe that just as the Himalayas failed to stop monks of both the countries from travelling to the others' land in ancient times, today, mutual communication and understanding between China and India will be a great mass movement.

I believe that more and more Indians will be interested in post-Olympics China, and more and more Chinese will be interested in exploring the holy sites of Lord Buddha in India.

I believe that an increasing number of young Indians will learn the Chinese language and more and more young Chinese will learn to love Bollywood movies.

I believe that the surge in bilateral trade between China and India is not a chance phenomenon, but the logical result of mutual complementarities in the economic strengths of our two countries.

I believe that the world has enough space for China and India, the two largest developing countries, to develop together.

I believe that by bringing Indian software and Chinese hardware together, we can create a miracle.

I believe that even though the social systems of China and India are quite different, it is important for us to learn from each other, rather than argue which one is better than the other.

I believe that both the Chinese and Indian peoples are more mature than before and can cherish and maintain the good relationship achieved between the two great nations.

I believe that the Chinese and Indian peoples, who account for two-fifths of humanity, have reached a common understanding: the Sino-Indian relationship can have only one destiny, that is, win-win for both countries.

Thank you.