China wants yoga-like global status for Tai Chi

China plans to push for global recognition for its ancient martial art Tai Chi following India’s successful efforts to get June 21 designated as the International Yoga Day by the United Nations.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang along with Prime Minister Modi attended the joint presentation of Yoga and Tai Chi performance by nearly 400 mostly Chinese and few Indian youths on Friday at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

Li wants to get UN recognition for Tai Chi too, officials said. China was one of the co-sponsors of the India-backed resolution at the UN to get June 21 declared as the International Yoga Day. India has announced plans to organise UN Yoga Day celebrations in a big way all over China.

The unique joint event on Friday representing the age-old physical and spiritual forms of Indian and Chinese civilisations at the iconic Temple of Heaven here was widely covered by the Chinese media.

“What brought the practitioners -- or rather the two countries -- together could be inferred from the leaders’ messages afterward: China and India, despite any differences that may exist, could join hands in pursuit of health and peace,” state-run China Daily said in its report on the event.

Both Tai Chi and Yoga, with their time honoured histories, could provide benefits to physical and mental health in modern society, Li was quoted as saying.

The performance displayed both sides’ determination to work together to achieve healthy lives for a combined 2.5 billion people, along with regional stability and lasting global peace, he said.

The message extended the list of areas of common ground highlighted during Modi’s visit to China dwarfing the problems to be settled by the two neighbours, such as the border issue, the report said.

K Nagraj Naidu, director of investments in the external affairs ministry, who organised the event said 200 trained youths each from Yoga and Tai Chi from different institutions in China were mobilised for the event.

Naidu, who was till recently the consul general of the Indian consulate in Chengdu, told the media recently that India will organise a big International Yoga Festival coinciding next month to commemorate the first UN Yoga Day at the picturesque Chinese city of Dujiangyan, close to Chengdu from June 17-21.

Nineteen eminent Indian yoga teachers from all top yoga schools in India would take part in the event.

Image: Beijing residents practice Tai Chi, a traditional Chinese martial art, at a park. Photograph: Getty Images