India, China to hold maritime dialogue; minister to visit India

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 5

In a move that indicates a growing thaw in military-level ties between India and China the two nations will conduct a bilateral maritime dialogue and Chinese Defence Minister Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe is expected to visit New Delhi.

Already a 10-member Chinese delegation, including eight from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is on four-day visit to India. This includes a meeting with the Army’s Sukna-based 33 Corps that looks after Sikkim, the site of the Doklam stand-off last year.

The maritime dialogue would be at the Joint Secretary-level, sources confirmed; the last one was in 2016. This one comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a keynote address on June 1 at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore focusing on the Indo-Pacific region.

Modi’s speech had asked countries to follow ‘rules-based’ order and India’s stand of cooperating with the US on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ was considered a counter to China’s growing aggressiveness in that region.

On China’s position in the Indo-Pacific waters and the contested South China Sea, a source said, “We have never been critical. We have only asked for a rules-based order.”

In the recent past, separate bilateral maritime dialogues have already taken place with France and Indonesia. Sources said that besides China, India would be conducting a similar dialogue with Russia.

Meanwhile, the dates for the visit of Lieutenant General Wei are being worked out. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and he have met twice in the recent months–in Moscow on the sidelines of the Moscow Security Conference (MCS) and then in China. The Chinese Defence Minister has commanded the Second Artillery Corps,

On the economic ties, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued licences and given clearances to Bank of China to open a branch in Mumbai, say sources, adding that India is working to address the trade imbalance with China. Clearances for agricultural products are being ‘fast tracked’.