China is finalising plans to build a museum at Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's family residence in Kolkata to introduce the bard's writings, paintings and other work done during his visits to the neighbouring country.

“Scholars of both the countries have high hope of cooperation between the two countries at domestic and international level,” the Chinese Ambassador in India, Mr Zhang Yan, said at the launch of book Tagore and China here on Thursday.

Mr Zhang said he had two months ago visited Tagore's home in Jorasanko in Kolkata to finalise the location of setting up of the “small museum that will introduce Tagore's works in China.”

The ambassador added that the Chinese government has already donated some money and the project would be completed this year which also marks the 150th birth anniversary of the Nobel laureate.

Materials ready

“We have prepared a lot of books, paintings, poems and other documents of Tagore that will be displayed in the museum. It will show the attachment that the Chinese feel towards Tagore who is well remembered in China,” he said.

Tagore, said Mr Zhang, is well-known in China and had during his visits to the country befriended numerous scholars, writers and intellectuals and the sympathised with the Chinese fighting against foreign invasion.

“China is fond of those memories and is very grateful to Tagore. In 2009, when China was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, we selected 100 people around the world who had influenced China the most and Tagore was one among them,” he said.

The book Tagore and China edited by Tan Chung and Amiya Dev among others contains essays by various authors charting Rabindranath Tagore's 50-day visit to China in 1924, the series of talks he gave there and its civilisational impact.

The Chief Economic Advisor of the Ministry of Finance, Mr Kaushik Basu, who was present at the book launch, said, “The interaction between India and China needs to be go beyond the governmental levels and needs to be ramped at cultural and social levels.”

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