Following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election victory on Wednesday, China congratulated him and said it was "ready to work" with its neighbor.
Both nations have frequently battled in the region and accused one another of attempting to take territory along their unofficial border, known as the Line of Actual Control.
Speaking at a routine press briefing, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated that "a healthy and stable China-India relationship is in the common interest of both sides and is also conducive to peace and development in the region and the world."
She continued, "The Chinese side would like to congratulate" Modi's National Democratic Alliance and the BJP party.
For the first time since his party's historic victory a decade ago, Modi's party is unlikely to earn an outright majority, perhaps setting him up for a considerably more difficult third term.
The results, which were announced on Tuesday, disproved the theory that, during the six-week election, Modi's Hindu nationalist platform would propel him to an overwhelming victory.
With an eye toward the broad picture and the future, she stated, "China is ready to work with India to promote the healthy and stable development of relations between the two countries, in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples."
India has been cautious about the increasing military assertiveness of its northern neighbor, and disagreements over their 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) shared border have long been a source of hostility.
The Asian superpowers engaged in a full-scale border conflict in 1962, with China claiming complete control over the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, viewing it as a part of Tibet.
Relations between Tibet and the Indian state of Ladakh sharply deteriorated after a clash in 2020, with both sides deploying significant forces to the region.
However, following over a dozen rounds of high-level military negotiations and a two-year army standoff, both nations started removing soldiers from a critical flashpoint close to that incident in September 2022.
Beijing's growing power in the Indian Ocean worries New Delhi as well, since it considers the area to be firmly under its sphere of influence.
It joined Washington in 2022 in voicing security worries after neighboring Sri Lanka permitted a Chinese research vessel suspected of spying to make a port visit.
Members of the so-called Quad, a security alliance centered on the Indo-Pacific region and intended to offer a more significant counterweight to China's growing military and economic might, are both the United States and India.
