On August 7, 2009, Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of India's United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and President of the Indian Congress Party, met with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Chinese Special Representative to the 13th China-India Boundary Talks Dai Bingguo in New Delhi, capital of India.

Dai conveyed cordial greeting and good wishes from General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese President Hu Jintao to Sonia Gandhi. Dai also expressed his congratulations to the UPA led by the Congress party for successfully winning a second term of government in the general elections this year.

Dai said that the Chinese government remains committed to developing long-term, stable and healthy friendly cooperative relations with India. Under the current international and regional situation, China and India, as two biggest developing countries in the world, have huge potentials and broad prospect to develop their bilateral cooperation.

Dai said since the UPA led by Congress party assumed power, China-India relations have entered into a fast track of all-round development and have reached one new level after another. He said that Gandhi has personally made great efforts for the development of Sino-Indian relations as leader of the UPA and the Congress party. Dai also said China is willing to make joint efforts with India to upgrade the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership to a new level.

Gandhi recalled the 1988 historic visit to China by her late husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as well as her attendance of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She said she was deeply impressed by the progress that China has made. There exists a very solid basis for developing friendly and cooperative relations between India and China and both sides should make joint efforts to build up the friendship between the two peoples and push forward their ties. Gandhi highlighted the importance of the exchanges between the two peoples, especially between their youth. She expressed her wish that as the two countries will mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations next year, they should take this opportunity to expand humanities exchanges and build a good social foundation for furthering friendship between the two countries.

Dai and Gandhi also exchanged views on strengthening friendly ties between the Communist Party of China and the Congress party of India.

Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan and Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei attended the meeting.