China’s Foreign Minister To Visit India

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What’s happening?

Signalling a possible turnaround in ties, China’s State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi could visit India later this month,
The first such visit by a Chinese official since the crisis along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) sparked by the Chinese military’s transgressions in April 2020.
Sources confirmed that a proposal for Mr. Wang’s visit to India has been received by New Delhi and is under consideration.

The proposed visit to India is understood to be part of Mr. Wang’s travels to south Asia.
The proposal for the visit came from the Chinese side and there were plans for Yi to also visit Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan as part of the trip to the region.
On Monday, Nepali media reported that the Chinese Foreign Minister would visit Kathmandu on March 26 for a two-day visit and call on Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and hold talks with Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka.
The Foreign Ministers are expected to sign a project implementation document for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects during the visit.

It was not immediately clear whether Yi intends to visit India before or after his trip to Nepal.
The people cited above said the Bhutanese side was not keen on a visit from the Chinese side.

If the Modi government accepts the proposal for the visit, it would mark a shift in its stand, articulated by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, That there can be no “business as usual” between the two countries until there is complete disengagement and de-escalation of the massive troop build-up along the LAC.
The visit will come following the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the India-Australia virtual summit,
Where the focus of talks besides bilateral issues will discuss the Chinese belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region as well as the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Wang’s visit to India will come at a time when both India and China have taken similar positions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
At the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council, where they abstained on resolutions aimed at Russia.
China is also the chair of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping this year, which could convene an in-person summit later this year if COVID-19 regulations are lifted.

In addition, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Delhi in December 2021,
The Kremlin had indicated that Russia could help organise a Russia-India-China (RIC) Summit in 2022, Which could see Prime Minister Narendra Modi come face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since the LAC crisis.
Ever since the LAC standoff began, the top leadership of India and China have participated in several virtual meetings of groupings such as-
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (Brics), though bilateral meetings, either in-person or virtual, have been rare.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar met Yi in Moscow on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers of SCO in September 2020, and again in Dushanbe on the sidelines of a meeting of SCO heads of states in September 2021.

Talks towards LAC disengagement are still on-going, and both sides described the latest 15 ^thround last week as positive and forward-looking.
Both sides are hopeful of reaching an agreement to disengage at Patrolling Point (PP) 15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area,
Which would leave Demchok and Depsang as remaining points of friction with disengagement already reached in the Galwan Valley, in north and south banks of the Pangong Lake and from PP17A in the Gogra-Hot Springs area.