The leaders of China and India vowed during an informal summit to cooperate against "radicalization" at a time of rising tensions over Beijing's support for Pakistan in its dispute with India over the divided region of Kashmir.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on October 11 for the first of a two-day visit to the Indian seaside temple town of Mamallapuram.
China has criticized New Delhi’s move to revoke the special status of the Indian-administered portion of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided by India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both.
The August 5 revocation means that India's Jammu and Kashmir will be largely run by the central government as territorial autonomy has largely vanished. Both states will become a union territory and the third state of Ladakh -- part of which is claimed by Beijing -- will become a union territory.
Despite that dispute, the leaders acknowledged a common challenge, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said.
"Both leaders said that these were large countries and that radicalization was a matter of concern to both, and that both would work together to see that radicalization and terrorism did not affect the fabric of our multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious societies," Gokhale told reporters..
Xi held talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing just two days before the meeting Modi.
Xi said he supports Pakistan's "legitimate rights" -- leading India's Foreign Ministry to respond by saying it was "not for other countries to comment on the internal affairs of India."