Wang Yi to Attend BRICS Security Advisers’ Meeting in New Delhi

Amidst suspense over whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the Brics summit to be hosted by India in September, Beijing on Thursday announced Wang Yi will attend a meeting of the grouping's national security advisers and high representatives to be held in New Delhi on June 22-23.

The Chinese foreign ministry announced that at the invitation of NSA Ajit Doval, Mr Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, will attend the meeting. Mr Wang is also likely to hold a bilateral meeting with Mr Doval on the sidelines and also meet external affairs minister S. Jaishankar for talks.

Earlier in May, both nations had held their “35th meeting of the working mechanism for consultation & coordination on India-China border affairs (WMCC)” in Beijing, wherein they held discussions on issues pertaining to delimitation, border management, mechanism building and cross-border cooperation.

After the talks, New Delhi had dubbed the “discussions constructive and forward-looking" and said that the two sides reviewed the situation in the India-China border areas while “expressing satisfaction with the progress made in maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas, which has enabled progress towards gradual normalisation of bilateral relations”.

“The two sides agreed to work together to make substantive preparation for the next meeting of the special representatives (SR), to be held in China. Both sides agreed to maintain regular exchanges and contacts at the diplomatic and military levels through mechanisms including those that were agreed upon as part of outcomes of the 24th SR talks," the foreign ministry had then said.