Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will meet and have lunch with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday during a personal visit to India, the latest sign of improvement of the two archrivals' relations.

Better ties between Pakistan and India, two nuclear-armed heavyweight neighbors on the South Asian subcontinent, will benefit both countries and regional stability.

Zardari, the first Pakistani head of state to land on India since 2005, will offer prayers at an Islamic shrine in India's Ajmer, a pilgrimage city 355 km southwest of New Delhi.

The two countries' efforts in warming up their ties certainly are welcomed and applauded by the international community including China, which neighbors both nations and maintains significant ties with them.

China and Pakistan have been "all-weather friends" over the past decades, while both China and India have been members of BRICS, a bloc of five major emerging economies that also includes Brazil, Russia and South Africa.

China wants to further boost ties with both countries, and is happy to witness continuous improvement of the Pakistan-India ties.

Peaceful coexistence between the two countries, which fought three wars after their independence from the British rule in 1947 and engaged in a tit-for-tat nuclear test race in 1998, is indispensable for regional stability, which is vital for regional prosperity and China's modernization drive.

The Pakistan-India relationship has undergone twists and turns over the past years. It was seriously hurt by Mumbai attacks in 2008, which killed 166 people. India blamed Pakistan-based terrorists for the attacks, while Pakistan ruled out official involvement and arrested some suspects, but has not prosecuted them.

The two countries resumed peace dialogue, which was suspended after the Mumbai attacks, in February 2011. Bilateral ties further improved after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Singh met on the sidelines of an international conference in the Maldives last November.

Pakistan said in February that it would phase out major restrictions on Indian imports by the end of the year to normalize their trade relations.

Better bilateral ties will undoubtedly boost their economies and may help bring down their defense expenditures, bringing tangible benefits to the two countries and peoples.

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