Foreign secretary Vikram Misri will travel to Beijing on a two-day trip beginning Sunday to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart as part of the ongoing efforts to normalise the bilateral relationship that had derailed in the summer of 2020.
This will be the second high-profile visit from India to China in less than one-and-a-half months. Last month, national security adviser Ajit Doval visited Beijing and held talks with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi under the framework of the special representatives' dialogue on the boundary dispute.
Announcing the visit, the external affairs ministry said the resumption of the foreign secretary-vice-minister bilateral mechanism flowed from the agreement at the leadership level to discuss the next steps for India-China relations, including in the political, economic and people-to-people domains.
It is expected that the two sides would touch upon several issues at the talks, including ways to de-escalate the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. China has been impressing upon India to agree to resume direct flights between the two countries and facilitate visas to Chinese citizens.
The upcoming meeting is one in a series of engagements that have taken place between India and China since the agreement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Russia in October on the sidelines of the BRICS summit to bring the bilateral relationship back on track. The defence ministers of the two countries have met since and the special representatives mechanism, too, has been activated after four years.
The announcement of the visit on Thursday comes close on the heels of the Quad foreign ministers' meeting in Washington on Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump assumed office as US President.
China has always bristled over Quad, viewing it as an attempt at containing its influence in the Indo-Pacific region, though the member countries maintain that their grouping is not directed against any country.
The Chinese foreign ministry reacted predictably on Wednesday to the Quad meeting — attended by the foreign ministers of India, Australia, Japan and the US — with spokesperson Mao Ning saying: “China believes that cooperation between countries should not target any third party.
“Engaging in group politics and bloc confrontation will not bring lasting peace and security, and is not conducive to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific and the world as a whole. China’s activities in relevant waters are lawful, legitimate and completely justified. We hope that relevant parties will do more things that help enhance mutual trust and cooperation between countries.”
Ever since he was voted back to the White House, Trump has reached out to China. While the Quad meeting so early into his term is seen as a signal by itself, the US-China dynamics could change on his watch given his unpredictability.
Additional reporting by PTI
