Chinese Foreign Minister May Visit India for Border Talks

New Delhi: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Chinese port city of Tianjin at the end of this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi may visit India next week for the 24th round of the Special Representative (SR) talks on the boundary issue between the two nations. According to reports, the visit is likely to take place on August 18. However, there has been no official word or confirmation from either New Delhi or Beijing, although it is widely expected that Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will visit New Delhi for talks ahead of Modi’s trip.

National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval had met Wang in Beijing on June 23 this year on the sidelines of the SCO Security Council Secretaries’ meeting and had told him that he looked forward to meeting in India at a mutually convenient date for the 24th round of SR talks. This comes as the two Asian giants seek to rebuild ties that have deteriorated sharply since 2020.

External affairs minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar had also visited China last month and made it clear to Wang that, after the military disengagement in the Ladakh sector between Indian and Chinese troops achieved last year, “it is now incumbent on us to address other aspects related to the border, including de-escalation.” The remarks were seen as a clear message from New Delhi that Beijing needs to take further steps to resolve border issues, as this will determine the trajectory of bilateral ties. The EAM had told Wang, “We have made good progress in the past nine months for the normalisation of our bilateral relations. It is a result of the resolution of friction along the border and our ability to maintain peace and tranquillity there. This is the fundamental basis for mutual strategic trust and for the smooth development of bilateral relations.”

Modi’s visit to China will be his first since the deadly Galwan Valley clash between Indian and Chinese troops in mid-June 2020. He had last visited China twice in 2018, first for the informal summit with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, and then for the SCO Summit in Qingdao just two months later. President Xi last visited India in October 2019 for an informal summit with Modi near Chennai. Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with President Xi, which would be his second in the past year. Both leaders last met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, in October last year, when the two nations announced a breakthrough by signing a pact on military disengagement in Depsang and Demchok in the Ladakh sector after several rounds of talks at both diplomatic and military levels. This agreement set the course for improvement in ties.

It may be recalled that India’s relations with China were severely strained after Chinese troops amassed at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh sector in April-May 2020 in violation of bilateral border agreements, leading to the deadly clash in the Galwan Valley in June that year, in which troops on both sides were killed. The two Asian giants are now in the process of rebuilding ties.

Direct flights between the two nations could resume soon, marking another step toward the normalisation of relations. Beijing has been particularly keen on resuming direct flights and has been actively pushing for it. The resumption by China of the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage for Indian nationals this year, and India’s recent decision to resume granting tourist visas to Chinese nationals, are among the measures already in place. According to media reports, the announcement on the resumption of direct flights could come on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Tianjin in a few weeks, which Modi is expected to attend.

Sensing an opportunity to strengthen ties with India following the imposition of 50 percent tariffs on New Delhi by the Trump Administration, China last week made comments seen as welcoming Modi’s forthcoming visit to Tianjin.