Message from Beijing amid India-China tension, Ambassador Doraiswami reminded of 2000 years of friendship

(Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Duraiswami has said that mutual enrichment of languages and exchange of ideas has been a defining feature of relations between the two countries for more than two millennia.
Duraiswami, who took over as India’s Ambassador to China last month, on Friday visited Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), where he delivered a lecture and interacted with students and faculty members.
BFSU, the premier institute of foreign languages in China, has courses in 102 languages including Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit and Urdu.
It has also recently added Punjabi to its list of courses.
These languages are taught primarily to Chinese students as well as diplomats and officials.
Duraiswami, who speaks fluent Mandarin, highlighted during his lecture that mutual enlightenment and exchange of ideas has been a defining feature of India-China relations for more than two millennia.

“Citing examples from the Maurya period to the modern era, Duraiswami explained how exchanges between the world’s two oldest civilizations enriched both societies through sharing of knowledge, philosophy, artistic traditions, technology and innovation,” the Indian Embassy in Beijing said in a post on ‘X’.
“The Ambassador emphasized that historically such interactions have yielded mutual benefits,” it said.