Foreign Secretary Misri arrives in Beijing for talks on India-China relations

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri arrived in China on Sunday for a two-day visit, during which he will engage in talks with Chinese officials. This is the second high-profile visit from India to China in less than six weeks.

Misri, a former Ambassador to China is visiting on Republic Day just before the Chinese Spring Festival and New Year celebrations which begin on January 29 and will lead to an official shutdown in the country for a week.

The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said that Foreign Secretary Misri will be visiting Beijing on January 26 and 27 ”for a meeting of the Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism between India and China”.

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”The resumption of this bilateral mechanism flows 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 said in a brief statement.

On Friday, China welcomed Misri’s visit and sounded positive about its outcome, saying the development followed a series of interactions between top leaders and officials from both countries after over four years of stalled ties over the Ladakh military standoff.

”We welcome Foreign Secretary Shri Vikram Misri’s travel to China for the meeting of the Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism between China and India,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning told a media briefing here.

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Mao said that last October, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached important common understandings on improving and growing bilateral relations during their meeting in October on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia.

Recently, both sides have acted to earnestly implement these common understandings, she said.

Chinese and Indian foreign and defence ministers met each other on multilateral occasions.

This was followed by the 23rd meeting between Special Representatives (SRs) of China and India on the boundary issue last month.

SRs National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the 23rd meeting of the mechanism in December after a gap of five years. The meeting concluded with positive outcomes.

Mao said that during talks, both sides agreed to improve and strengthen the interactions and resume institutional dialogues as well as exchanges and cooperation in various fields, including working on bringing the China-India relations back on track with sound and steady growth at an early date.

After Doval’s visit, Misri is the second high-level Indian official to travel to Beijing in about a month.

It is expected that the two sides will 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 proposing to resume direct flights between the two countries and facilitate the issuance of visas to Chinese citizens.

The decision to revive the SR mechanism and other such dialogue formats was taken during the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi in Kazan.

The Modi-Xi meeting came two days after India and China firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok, the last two friction points in eastern Ladakh.

In the SR dialogue, India pressed for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the overall boundary dispute between the two countries.

Doval and Wang also focused on a ”positive” direction for cross-border cooperation, including the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, river data sharing and border trade.

India has maintained that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas.

Following the completion of the disengagement process in Demchok and Depsang, Indian and Chinese militaries also resumed patrolling activities in the two areas after a gap of almost four-and-a-half years.