China and India should carry on cooperation despite any differences, as the two sides have had thorough communication through diplomatic channels, said Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the coming annual session of the top legislature.
"We cannot settle some problems for the moment, but we should not stop stepping forward just because of the problems," Fu said.
She made the remarks during a press conference for the annual session of the National People's Congress on Saturday morning. The session is scheduled to start on Sunday, when lawmakers nationwide will review the Government Work Report.
Mentioning that there have been some disagreements existing between China and India for years, the spokeswoman called on the two countries to boost mutual understanding.
"I believe that, for China-India relations, we should take both certain trees and the whole forest in sight," she added.
In the past, it was difficult to travel to India from China because there were few flights linking the two neighbors, but now around 40 flights commute between China and India each week, she said, adding that the leaders of both countries have been meeting frequently in recent years.
The Chinese and Indian militaries visit each other annually, and the two sides have established a cooperative mechanism to fight cross-border crimes and counter terrorism, she said.
The spokeswoman gave an example to describe the China-India economic ties - in 1990s, when she worked on Asian affairs at the Foreign Ministry, one of her colleagues mistakenly wrote the $2 billion China-India trade volume as $20 billion.
"I said at that time that this number was too large, and I could hardly see China-India trade volume reaching $20 billion in the whole of my life. But it reached $70 billion last year," she said.
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