Former British prime minister Lord Palmerston, during a speech in the House of Common on March 1, 1848, said: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

News reports during the last few months on the changing pattern of the Sino-Indian relations substantiate the authenticity of the above quote.

The recent visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to New Delhi in which he held wide ranging talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval tend to reflect a degree of paradigm shift in the Sino-Indian ties. The Chinese foreign minister, commenting about his visit to New Delhi, stated: "History and reality prove once again that a healthy and stable China-India relationship serves the fundamental and long-term interests of both of our countries." Following the deadly border clash between India and China in 2020, relations between the two giants of Asia reached its lowest ebb. Even then, China remained India's largest trading partner with the bilateral trade touching 136 billion dollars a year.

The Indian Prime Minister is scheduled to visit China to attend SCO conference on August 31. Prime Minister Modi wrote in a post on X: "I look forward to our next meeting in Tianjin on the sidelines of SCO summit. Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity." Following the visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister to New Delhi, it was........

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