BEIJING: Amid fierce disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, China is reaching out to India in a warming trend that could help ramp up economic exchanges and dissipate decades of distrust between the two giant neighbours.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was conspicuous in being the first foreign leader to call Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi following Modi’s swearing-in last month.

The next day, Li dispatched his top foreign policy adviser to tell India’s ambassador that China wanted to boost cooperation in all areas.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Modi in New Delhi to affirm that past differences between the countries shouldn’t affect their current relations.

The potential for India-China ties is “just like the emerging tip of a massive buried treasure that awaits your discovery,” Wang was quoted as saying in an interview with India’s The Hindu newspaper.

Relations between the sides had long been strained amid India’s worries about Beijing’s rising strength and a decades-old dispute over their shared 6,400-kilometer Himalayan border that triggered a brief war in 1962.

Modi talked tough while campaigning, saying India didn’t want a war with China but would be prepared to deal with any threats. However, after leading his party to a landslide victory on economic promises, Modi surprised many in India by immediately reaching out to neighbouring Asian countries, including traditional archrival -- and close Chinese ally -- Pakistan.

Beijing, too, has much reason to draw nearer to India, especially as chief rival the United States seeks to strengthen its relationships in Asia after the distractions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Huang Jing, a China expert at Singapore National University’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “India carries great strategic value for China, so its bottom line is to not push India over to the US,” Huang said.

“China wants India, at the very least, to stay neutral.”

Strong relations with India make all the more sense given the tensions roiling China’s ties to its south and east, all of which have affected high-level diplomatic and, in some cases, economic relations. China believes those countries have been emboldened by the US rebalancing, or pivot, to Asia, as part of what Beijing considers a Washington-led campaign to encircle China and constrain its rise.

Chinese and Vietnamese ships have clashed repeatedly in the South China Sea since Beijing moved an oil rig into waters claimed by Hanoi on May 1. Anti-Chinese protests last month spun off into violence, with hundreds of factories looted and burned, four Chinese killed and more than 300 injured.

China and the Philippines are embroiled in a similar dispute, while China has revived its beef with Japan over territory and Tokyo’s World War II invasion. Beijing has suspended most government-to-government exchanges with Tokyo and Chinese patrol boats routinely confront Japanese craft in waters surrounding uninhabited East China Sea islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

While Beijing has been strengthening ties with fellow authoritarian state Russia, the conflicts elsewhere on its periphery enhance its sense of encirclement. But India’s traditional non-aligned stance has always been attractive to Beijing, and now both sides want to “get down to work to resolve prickly issues,” said Manoj Joshi, a leading Indian defence analyst.

The warm sentiments began even before Modi was elected. The new prime minister had already visited China four times during his 12 years as chief minister of the west Indian state of Gujarat.

Li, China’s premier, made India his first foreign destination after taking office last year. The thawing in relations also comes amid China’s rising concerns about instability in Pakistan, which Beijing fears is being used as a base for militants fighting Chinese rule in the far northwestern region of Xinjiang.

China now considers Pakistan as a liability rather than an asset and sees the need to cooperate with India on stabilising the situation, Huang said. China is also eager to help revive India’s stalled economy, upgrade its crumbling infrastructure and prop up faltering bilateral trade, which dropped to $65 billion last year, with China enjoying a $48 billion surplus.

Having grown into the world’s second-largest economy, China offers a road map for reform, particularly in an Indian manufacturing industry that is crucial for Modi to fulfil his promise to create the jobs needed for the 13 million youths entering India’s labour market every year.

Despite the new friendliness, Huang and other observers see little chance of an end to the border dispute after 17 rounds of talks.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2014