India-China Ties Better Than Ever
(Times of India | Lucknow | December 22, 2002)
People's Republic of China's cultural counsellor Yang Linhai said that India could provide a sustainable market to Chinese goods and the Indian government should encourage them. In lieu of that, he said, India might find space for its goods of export quality in China.
Yang, who was in the city for the past couple of days in connection with a host of programmes organised by the Indo-China Friendship Association of Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with the Chinese Cultural Counsel, said that as of now cultural ties between the two nations was better than that of industrial links. People in India, he said, seemed to welcome cultural troupes and in the past few years a number of such groups from China and Tibet visited the country. He, however, admitted that Chinese did not give undue importance to the recreational instincts and, instead, concentrated on basic needs. That was probably one of the reasons China made great strides in many fields, the counsellor said.
He admitted that he was right now not exploring business ties but would be interested because of high potential of the Indian market along with those of European market. Just now it was cuts and pieces, he felt.
Replying to queries about industrial growth of China, he said people from India visited China but still they knew less about the country. He said that even smaller cities in China had outpaced developed cities like Shanghai and others. The rate growth in the eastern part, he said, was much better than that of western parts. But the western parts was also catching up fast with the eastern parts, he said.
Speaking about the popularity of Chinese goods in India, Yang said that some officials were scared of it, though there was nothing to fear about it. But the Chinese, he said, were not afraid of any foreign goods flooding her own market. Probably this provided occasions to hear much about their technology, he felt. The counsellor said that in the past ten years, China had become a great importer of technological goods with the help of these tactics. Chinese people, he said, had been visiting many parts of India to promote ties and Uttar Pradeh could also provide them some space.
In software India was ahead of many nations and in hardware China was matchless and, if these two joined hands, it would herald a new chapter for development of the two nations, he said.
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