India is free to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said in New Delhi on Friday, adding that it would boost India-China trade, which is growing “very fast”.
The RCEP is the world’s largest Chinese-backed trading bloc and includes 15 Asia-Pacific economies including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and 10 member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors have soured after clashes at a disputed border site in Ladakh in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in June 2020.
Shouwen said during a discussion at the “Business 20” summit of G20 member states that it is India’s decision whether to join the RCEP and that the door is “always open”.
India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, who chaired the discussion, said India-China trade is growing but “largely in China’s favour”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg this week on India’s concerns over unresolved border issues.
Both sides agreed to step up efforts to withdraw and de-escalate, India’s foreign minister told reporters on Thursday.
Xi told Modi that improving China-India ties serves the interests of both countries and promotes peace, stability and development, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua, which said the meeting was at Modi’s request.
