Indian and Chinese officials met on Wednesday in Beijing to explore ways to strengthen bilateral ties, agreeing to enhance people-to-people exchanges through India-China direct flight resumption, media and think-tank interactions, and celebrations for the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
The meeting was attended by Gourangalal Das, Joint Secretary(East Asia) and Liu Jinsong, Director General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During the meeting, both sides took positive note of the developments in bilateral ties since the meeting of the leaders of India and China in October 2024.
The meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia, in October, provided strategic guidance for the improvement and development of bilateral ties.
In November last year, Indian and Chinese troops started patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh after a gap of over four years.
Patrolling was stopped in these two areas in eastern Ladakh for about four and a half years after the two sides clashed in the Pangong Lake and Galwan regions in May-June 2020.
Kailash Manasarovar Yatra
During the latest meeting between officials in Beijing, they made further progress on the modalities to resume the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra in 2025.
“The two sides took stock of the planned exchanges and activities this year,” read a statement issued by the MEA.
They discussed resumption of dialogue mechanisms in a step-by-step manner to utilize them to address each other’s priority areas of interest and concern and move relations on to a more stable and predictable path.
India-China Bond
India and China have more than thirty dialogue mechanisms in place at various levels, across bilateral political, economic, cultural, people-to-people and consular matters, along with dialogues on regional and global issues. However, bilateral relations have been adversely impacted by incidents along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020.
The Special Representatives (SR) mechanism on the India-China Boundary Question was established in 2003, and 22 rounds of talks have been held so far, as per the Indian Embassy in China website.
(With inputs from IBNS)
