Strengthening China-India Ties Through Cultural and People-to-people Contacts

2020 is indeed a special year for the world’s two largest developing countries and emerging economies. China and India as the two countries, bound by a growing convergence of perspectives, are now celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations throughout the year by designating this historic moment as the China-India Year of Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges. Surely, it is more gratifying and energizing to see that cultural and people-to-people contacts, which were earlier sideshows in official India-China talks, are now moving to the forefront of bilateral relations empowering further cultural exchanges in recent years. There is no doubt that India and China can make the world a more dynamic and prosperous place with the realization of the “Dragon-Elephant Tango” by the participation of the two peoples residing on either side of the Himalayas.

India and China are both ancient civilizations with their cultural influences making outstanding contributions to the world. From ancient times to the era of globalization, the two countries have been engaging in “two thousand years of unbroken interaction” and people-to-people exchanges to facilitate mutual learning, setting a perfect example of civilizational cooperation against the so-called “clash of civilizations.” Truly, in the context of Sino-Indian relations, cultural and people-to-people exchanges have been stitching the two neighboring countries in similar joy and gusto.

We cannot but feel marvelous if we look back to take stock of where our bilateral relations started and where we stand today. Inspired by Buddhism, great scholars of both nations had visited each other in ancient times to enhance the development of the two great civilizations. Towering snow-capped mountains and a vast expanse of deserts have never blocked the exchanges between our two great civilizations. Buddhism was introduced to China from its cradle in India. In the 7th century, Chinese pilgrim and scholar-monk Xuan Zang, also known as Hsuan Tsang, came to India via the Silk Road for Buddhist scriptures. During his 14-year stay in India, he studied at Nalanda University in Bihar under Shilabhadra for a couple of years. The written accounts of his pilgrimage have enabled the Indian people to learn about Hsuan Tsang in a better way, and about the Chinese Buddhist culture as well as the history of friendly exchanges between the two countries. Chinese monk Fa Hien or Fa Xian (337-422) visited India and sought further Buddhist knowledge. Zhang Qian, a famous Chinese envoy in the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.), went to the Western Regions and discovered “Shu cloth” and “bamboo sticks” that were imported from India.

Some Indian monks also traveled to China and established Buddhist temples such as Lingyin in Hangzhou, Shaolin, and others. Chinese paper-making, silk, porcelain, and tea were introduced to India, and Indian songs and dances, astronomy, architecture, and spices were introduced to China. During his seven voyages, the great Chinese navigator Zheng He visited India six times. These mutual exchanges reflect the spirit of the ancient Silk Road, which is based on peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit. These are but a few examples of our past interactions that have inspired a lasting friendship between our peoples.

Since modern times, Dr. Sun Yat-sen and other Chinese revolutionists had been supporting the Indian independence movement. The first Asian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore visited China twice and advocated Eastern spiritual civilization together with Tan Yunshan (the founding director of the Department of Chinese Language and Culture “Cheena Bhavana” at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan). Cheena Bhavana has been playing a pioneering role in the development of Chinese studies in India.

While delivering her lecture on Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of India and China at the Singapore Consortium for China-India Dialogue on January 13, 2011, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupam Rao rightly remarked: “The vision of Asian unity, conceived by Tagore nearly a century ago, is close to getting realized in the process of community-building in our region.”

During the war against Japanese aggression, India, under Jawaharlal Nehru’s advice, sent a medical mission to China in which Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis, one outstanding representative of this medical team, sacrificed his life in China. On the other hand, Professor Xu Fancheng, a famous Chinese scholar and translator, lived in Pondicherry for 27 years and five years in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. He translated 50 Upanishads, Bhagawad Gita and Shakuntala from Sanskrit into Chinese. He also translated Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine and Integral Yoga into Chinese. Plainly speaking, Tagore, Tan Yunshan, and Xu Fancheng were pioneers to promote China-India cultural exchanges in modern times.

In the early 1950s, China and India enjoyed amicable contacts. The two countries established diplomatic relations on April 1, 1950 and India became the first non-socialist country to establish diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China. In 1954, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru exchanged visits. The two leaders jointly initiated the famous Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which remained the guiding principle of both countries. Premier Zhou paid another visit to India in 1956. The slogan “Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai” (the Indian and Chinese people are brothers) was known to every household in the mid-1950s. The concept of fraternal partnership remained unperturbed until the unfortunate border conflict of 1962.

However, after passing a long 26-year “frozen period,” the two countries started to recover the “honeymoon period” of the past with the “ice-breaking visit” by then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012 until the present, the two countries have expanded cooperation from bilateral to multilateral areas, and have joined hands to speak up for emerging economies. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi put huge efforts into Sino-Indian relations with their “hometown diplomacy,” which effectively accelerated trade, cultural communication, educational cooperation, and tourist exchanges between the two countries. No doubt these activities serve the fundamental interests of both countries, meet common aspirations of their people and are conducive to peace and development in the region and the world.

President Xi’s first visit to India in September 2014 rekindled memories of Prime Minister Modi escorting the Chinese president around the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. This visit was followed by Modi’s trip to Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province in April 2018. The iconic picture of the two leaders sitting on a traditional swing on the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad on September 17, 2014, and the picture of a boat ride or a walk by the famous East Lake in Wuhan remain fresh in the minds of well over two billion people on both sides of the Himalayas. The Wuhan informal talks helped enhance goodwill and trust between the two biggest Asian neighbors which were locked in an acrimonious relationship over the Dong Lang (Doklam) standoff in the summer of 2017.

The scenario of “the dragon and the elephant dancing together” has acquired a fresh resonance after the second informal summit between the two top leaders in Chennai on October 11-12 last year. The Chennai summit has not only reaffirmed the Wuhan Consensus but also opened new pathways of cooperation between the two Asian giants.

From the common Indian perspective, it is important for the two neighboring countries to mitigate the host of disputes and differences that engulfed bilateral relations over the years. But the Wuhan summit had resulted in the birth of the first meeting of the China-India high-level cultural and people-to-people exchanges mechanism, co-chaired by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj, held in New Delhi on December 21, 2018. The newly constituted mechanism includes film and television co-production, media, education and think tanks, sports, youth exchanges, tourism, traditional medicine, exchanges between cities and states, yoga and academics. On the other hand, the second meeting of this mechanism held in Beijing on August 12, 2019, reinforced the primacy of people-to-people relations in the burgeoning India-China partnership. These two meetings suggest that the support for enhanced people-to-people exchanges is widening in both countries in recent years. Undoubtedly, the cultural and people-to-people exchanges mechanism is a “major initiative in the history of India-China relationship” that has helped consolidate the popular basis for state-to-state relations.

The exchanges of education, in particular, play a crucial role in Sino-Indian rapprochement. Indian and Chinese parents both aspire to make their children succeed through education, which is why many Chinese parents can resonate with the Indian film Hindi Medium that depicts India’s education system with a humorous light. As China aims to become Asia’s top destination for international students by 2020, it is trying to remove barriers on language to attract more young intelligent students of India to its top universities.

The second edition of the Chinese Higher Education Expo, organized by the Consulate General of China in Kolkata, the capital city of eastern Indian state West Bengal on May 10-11, 2018, saw an overwhelming participation of Indian students who are opening their minds for higher education in China. According to a press release by the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi in May 2019, around 18,000 Indian students are currently studying in China as compared to 765 just a decade ago. According to a survey by the Center for China and Globalization in 2017, the number of Indian students studying in China has seen a year-on-year increase of more than 20 percent on average. More than 80 percent of Indian students in China follow undergraduate clinical medical courses in various medical institutions, according to the Indian Embassy in Beijing. On the other hand, the number of Chinese students in India has remained steady, but “very low,” at about 2,000 for the last few years. The Chinese newspapers Global Times wrote, “Many Chinese students currently studying in India decry India’s notorious red tape, which erodes their enthusiasm to the country.” Therefore, the Indian government must resolve the Chinese students’ safety and visa concerns.

For years, Indian films have enjoyed a solid fan base in China, transcending language barriers. In 1955, Changchun Film Studio introduced Raj Kapoor’s 1951 classic Awaara which was the first Indian film screened at Chinese theatres. Indian movies such as Noorie and Caravan left a deep, lasting impression on the Chinese audience in the 1980s. In recent years, the successive triumph of the Bollywood films Dangal, Secret Superstar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Hindi Medium, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, Toilet: A Love Story, to list a few, have proved that Chinese audiences respect quality Indian films just as much as their own stories. In other words, China’s growing attachment to Bollywood films is gradually changing the Chinese audience’s impression of India while expanding cultural understanding with Chinese people, cooling off the bitter disputes of India-China relationship.

In today’s high-stress living environment, India’s prescription is sacred “yoga” while China has long prescribed to the intangible cultural heritage of Taiji (or Tai Chi). However, it’s a matter of pride that yoga fever has gripped China in recent years, vying with its own national treasure Taiji. The first yoga college outside India has emerged with the collaboration of India and China at Yunnan Minzu University in Kunming, becoming a milestone of cultural exchanges between the two nations. The university is now offering China’s first master’s degree in yoga, officially approved by the country’s Ministry of Education in January 2017. Meanwhile, martial arts and Chinese food are popular in India. The Chinese mobile phone brands Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo are among the top five brands in India.

To sum up, it can be said that even though India and China follow different models of governance, their objectives are the same. In order to realize the “Chinese Dream” and “Indian Dream,” the two sides should enhance people-to-people contacts and cultural exchanges to broaden the base of their relationship. As neighbors, India and China have great potential in deepening cultural exchanges, based on common values.

Since the world is becoming increasingly uncertain and unstable, a more pragmatic and healthy Sino-Indian relationship is the need of the hour. As important contemporary civilizations, the two countries should learn from and help each other to realize win-win cooperation and common development. China and India should enhance understanding of each other’s culture and promote a dialogue to usher in a new chapter of glory for Eastern civilization. 

The author is a foreign expert at Beijing Foreign Studies University.