Chinese premier Wen Jiabao iterated Friday that the Indian media was causing “damage” to the bilateral ties, in what was seen as a reaction to the not-so-flattering headlines of the morning’s newspapers on the outcome of his talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Mr Wen told a group of editors and scholars before concluding his three-day visit to India that he understood that the press in India had freedom but it should play a role in promoting friendship.
He went on to cite the Indian media’s coverage of the situation on the Sino-Indian border to say that “not a single shot had been fired” nor had there been any “exchanges in border areas” between the troops, as had been reported.
The boundary question has “repeatedly been sensationalised” by the media after which leaders of the two countries have had to “repair the damage and harm”, he noted.
“A good neighbour is a blessing. We must be good neighbours,” Mr Wen emphasised, urging the Indian media to play a more active role in enhancing friendship.
Underlining the importance of media’s role, Mr Wen said that in his eight years as premier he had given only one interview to a departing foreign journalist, who happened to be from PTI. Answering questions, the Chinese premier said it was undeniable that in the long history between the two countries there was “a page of twists and turns”, an apparent reference to the 1962 Sino-Indian war. But that was a “short page” and it was time the two countries “turned over that page”, he said.
Both India and China had gone through “a lot of history” and surmounted “a lot of difficulties”. Both had great ethnic, cultural and religious diversities and therefore both have to be “inclusive societies”.