This summer, India and China will resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra.

While Beijing has conceded on this count, India has given an in-principle nod to the Chinese request to resume direct flights between the two nations. The key decisions were taken during foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s two-day visit to China for the foreign secretary-vice-minister mechanism meeting.

According to the Indian readout, the relevant mechanism will discuss the modalities of resuming the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra as per the existing agreements. The yatra was stopped because of Covid-19 and was not resumed even after the pandemic ebbed because of the tensions that prevailed in the wake of the Galwan clash in the summer of 2020.

The two sides also agreed to hold an early meeting of the India-China expert-level mechanism to discuss the resumption of provisions of hydrological data and other cooperation on transborder rivers. With China being an upper riparian state, any construction on rivers running into India becomes an issue that requires deft handling.

As part of an agreement to facilitate people-to-people exchanges, they agreed to resume direct air services. Now, it will be over to the relevant technical authorities on the two sides to negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date. The people-to-people exchanges will include media and think-tank interactions.

The two sides took stock of the extant mechanisms for functional exchanges. They agreed to resume these dialogues step by step and utilise them to address each other’s priority areas of interest and concern. Specific concerns in the areas of economy and trade were discussed to resolve these issues and promote long-term policy transparency and predictability, the external affairs ministry said.

Earlier during his meeting with Misri, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi stressed the need for both India and China to "meet each other halfway" and commit to mutual understanding, support and achievement instead of being driven by "suspicion, alienation and mutual depletion".

"Wang said China and India should seize the opportunity to meet each other halfway, explore more substantive measures, and commit themselves to mutual understanding, mutual support and mutual achievement, rather than mutual suspicion, alienation and mutual depletion," Beijing’s ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, posted on X.