and friendship, thus to live in peace with various countries in the world, especially with neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, and play a constructive role in regional peace and stability.

The situation in Afghanistan bears on regional peace and stability. As neighbours of Afghanistan, China and India should work together to play a constructive role in helping Afghanistan realise peace, reconciliation, stability and development at an early date. During the Wuhan informal summit last year, President Xi and Prime Minister Modi reached an important consensus on “China-India plus” cooperation and partnered with Afghanistan in the first place. Last year, the debut of Joint China-India training programme for Afghan diplomats was successfully held, as the first step in “China-India plus Afghanistan” cooperation. Building on this, China and India should further expandto Chinese markets?

A. At present, with the escalation of international trade tensions, the US has repeatedly taken protectionist measures and unilateral actions, which have severely impacted the multilateral trade system and posed challenges to world economic recovery and growth. With rising uncertainties in the external environment, China and India, as major emerging and developing countries, should uphold free trade and jointly speak out against trade protectionism and unilateralism. The two sides can strengthen cooperation under the WTO framework, jointly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries and play their due roles in safeguarding the multilateral trading system and advancing WTO reforms towards the right direction. Besides, the two sides should work together to promote regional economic integration and speed up negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic