NEW DELHI: With PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping set to carry forward the Sino-Indian rapprochement in their upcoming meeting in Tianjin, Chinese ambassador to India Xu Feihong Thursday backed India on the issue of US tariffs saying China strongly opposed the Trump administration’s move to impose 50% tariffs on India for its oil procurement from Russia.Xu said in the face of such acts, silence or compromise only emboldens the bully.“US has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on India and even threatened more. China firmly opposes it. China will firmly stand with India to uphold the multilateral trading system with WTO at its core,” said the ambassador.He also said the essence of trade was to complement each other’s advantages and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, not a calculation of who loses and who gains. He said trade should not become a tool for pursuing individual selfish interests. “US has long benefited gr-eatly from free trade, but now it is using tariffs as a bargaining chip to demand exorbitant prices from various countries,” said Xu at an event organised by thinktanks Chintan Research Foundation and Centre for Global India Insights. “The development of China and India has not been completely smooth, but fri-endship and cooperation have always been the main theme. There might be challenges, but unity and cooperation are our only options,” said Xu.His remarks came ahead of Modi’s first visit to China in seven years. He will be in Ti-anjin on Aug 31 for SCO summit, on the margins of which he will have bilateral meetings with Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of other member-states.The ambassador called for enhancing strategic trust and focusing on common interests. He said economic and trade structures of China and India were complementary.“We’ll welcome more Indian commodities into the Chinese market. India has a competitive edge in IT, software and biomedicine, while China is seeing rapid expansion in the fields of electronic manufacturing, infrastructure construction and new energy. The Chinese side welcomes more Indian enterprises to invest in China. It is also hoped that the Indian side could provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for the Chinese enterprises in India, so as to promote common development of industries and benefit the people of the two nations,” he said.
