Jaishankar, China’s Wang Yi likely to meet in Astana tomorrow
External affairs minister S Jaishankar and China’s Wang Yi are in Astana for the SCO Summit on July 3-4
NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana on Thursday, their first meeting in almost a year amid the military standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Both foreign ministers are in Astana for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit held on July 3-4. While Jaishankar represented India at the summit in the absence of the prime minister, Wang is part of President Xi Jinping’s delegation.
There was no formal announcement regarding the meeting by India or China, though the people cited above said on condition of anonymity that Jaishankar and Wang are expected to hold talks on Thursday morning before he returns to India.
Such a meeting would be an opportunity for the two sides to take stock of the situation along the LAC, with the face-off entering its fifth year in May. A deadly clash in Galwan Valley in June 2020, which killed 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops, sent ties plummeting to a six-decade low.
Jaishankar and Wang had a brief encounter on the margins of the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February, and they last held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of various Asean-related meetings in Jakarta on July 14, 2023.
The Indian leadership, including Jaishankar, has maintained that the overall relationship with China cannot be normalised without peace and tranquillity on the border. Jaishankar has also said that China is responsible for the current situation because it violated border management agreements and massed troops along the LAC.
However, even at his meeting with Jaishankar last July, Wang said that the two countries should “not define overall relations with specific issues” – a reference to China’s position that the LAC issue should be put in its “appropriate place” in the overall relationship.
China has also lobbied in recent weeks for the resumption of direct flights to India and the easing of restrictions on issuing visas to Chinese nationals, especially technical personnel deputed to work with manufacturing units in India. The Indian side has given no indication that it intends to address these issues, with officials saying that all such issues are linked to the situation in the Ladakh sector, where both sides have arrayed about 50,000 troops each.
Despite dozens of rounds of diplomatic and military talks, India and China have been unable to address remaining “friction points” on the LAC such as Depsang and Demchok and the people said the Jaishankar-Wang meeting could pave the way for the next round of these discussions.