External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will likely visit China next week, his first trip to the neighbouring country in five years. Jaishankar’s visit comes about three weeks after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited China to attend the SCO’s defence ministers’ meeting in Qingdao.
The ties between the two nations came under severe strain following the 2020 military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
During the trip, Jaishankar will hold a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing, before traveling to Tianjin to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s council of foreign ministers on July 14-15, according to a report in Bloomberg.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi may also visit India this month to hold a fresh round of talks with NSA Ajit Doval under the framework of Special Representatives (SR) dialogue on the boundary dispute, news agency PTI had reported earlier.
The two nations have been making efforts to repair strained ties of late. Last month, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited China to attend the SCO’s defence ministers’ meeting in Qingdao.
In December, NSA Doval visited Beijing for Special Representatives (SR) talks with Wang. Doval visited China last month as well for a meeting of top security officials of the SCO member nations.
On April 9, Jaishankar had said that India and China were moving towards a ‘positive direction’ in their ties. However, the minister said work needs to be done to normalise the relationship.
“I think we are moving in a positive direction,”Jaishankar said, speaking at the News 18 Rising Bharat Summit.
The SCO is a China-led multilateral group comprising nine permanent members, including India and Pakistan. China is the current chair of the SCO, and it is hosting the meetings of the grouping in that capacity.
Jaishankar and Yi are expected to discuss a range of issues, including rare earth supplies to India, the Dalai Lama’s succession, the recent India-Pakistan tensions, and the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, the Bloomberg report said.
Military standoff in Galwan Valley in 2020
The military standoff in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020, and a deadly clash at the Galwan Valley in June that year resulted in a severe strain in ties between the two neighbours.
The face-off effectively ended following completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21.
The decision to revive the SR mechanism and other such dialogue formats was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan on October 23.
Modi-Xi meeting came two days after India and China firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok. In the last few months, India and China have initiated a number of measures to repair the bilateral ties.
Last month, the two sides resumed the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra after a gap of nearly five years.
