Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India should be considered as a major diplomatic action, not just a single visit by the head of State. Following this, we should plan a series of actions to take advantage of the huge potential created by the visit, highlight China's sincerity and the strength of cooperation between the two countries, and stimulate Indian enthusiasm for cooperation with China.

Reform and opening-up in Guangdong Province in particular has had great influence in India. We can arrange mutual visits between representatives of Guangdong Province and the Indian province of Gujarat, where new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pioneered his own economic reforms while he was a leader there.

We can arrange mutual visits between Beijing and New Delhi, and Shanghai and Mumbai, consider setting up city twinning programs, and organize large delegations from Chinese private enterprises to study Indian programs. We can also organize mutual visits between universities and even between religious groups. In these programs, China needs to be modest and prudent, and put forward the slogan of "learning from India." This will help promote the integration of Asia and motivate India to join the embryonic Sino-Indian axis under the framework of "Chinese respect for India."

Since its reform and opening-up, China has called for learning from Singapore, Japan, Europe, and the US. Socialism with Chinese characteristics lies in the process of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by learning from other countries' strong points while overcoming their weak points.

Xi has solemnly declared "a new diplomatic concept between India and China," and sincerely put forward the idea of "learning from India." There are definitely things we can learn from India, such as the active role of private enterprises, which remains a tough problem for the Chinese economy.

The Indian government has a high return on investment. After the financial crisis of 2008, they invested tens of billions of dollars and maintained economic growth of around 6 percent.

In contrast, the Chinese government threw trillions of dollars into investment and barely retained economic growth of 7 to 8 percent, while leaving behind a pile of problems such as structural and market distortions. We can greatly benefit from learning from India's experience.

Even more crucial is to build good relations between the countries based on honest communication, and to deal with hidden psycho-cultural issues.

During China's rise, the Chinese public and top leaders should stay modest and prudent and sincerely stick to the idea of learning from India. This would help relieve the objective pressure that the rise of China has put on India. This would also effectually console and compensate the psychological needs of Indian nationalism, materially mitigate India's inferiority and anti-China complex due to its failure in the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962, and fundamentally improve the national psychology and public opinion about Sino-Indian cooperation.

We should also implement a "China respects India" policy, on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect.

Even though our current national power is much stronger than India's, we should not indiscriminately imitate Western traditional realism.

Instead, we should insist that China and India have equal rights, obligations and benefits, and we can even actively and appropriately surrender part of our rights and benefits to India.

For example, on significant international issues concerning environment, climate, and the rights and benefits of other developing countries, we can absolutely support India to be the leader so as to enhance its international status.

Take the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, where China has contributed $100 billion and actively invited India to play a role.

Even though India contributed much less than China, we also grant India basically the same decision-making power. China should also abandon previous taboos, and invite India to join the SCO.

The author is a professor at the School of Marxism Studies, Renmin University of China. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn