China, India should work for mutual support, rather than ‘suspicion’ and ‘alienation’: Wang to Misri
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri arrived is in Beijing for a two-day visit during which he would hold talks with Chinese officials, in the second such high-profile visit from India to China in less than one-and-a-half months.
The visit of Misri, who was also the former Ambassador to China, is taking place on Republic Day ahead of the celebrations of China's Spring Festival and the Chinese New Year, beginning on January 29, during which the country would officially shut down for a week.
Soon after his arrival, Misri met Liu Jianchao, head of the influential International Department of the ruling Communist Party, which sets the tone for China's foreign policy.
Misri on Monday held a meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“China and India should work in the same direction, explore more substantive measures and commit to mutual understanding, Wang Yi told Misri.
China and India should commit to "mutual support and mutual achievement" rather than "suspicion" and "alienation," Wang said during the two officials' meeting, according to the Chinese foreign ministry's readout.
Relations between China and India had been strained following a military clash on their border in 2020.
Ties have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia in October.
In December, Wang and India's national security adviser, Ajit Doval, agreed to seek ways to manage their border issue and step up efforts to build trust, at their second meeting in less than five months.
Paving the way for those talks was an agreement in October to disengage troops at two key face-off points on the countries' largely undemarcated western Himalayan frontier in Ladakh - a turning point in their dispute that included scheduled patrols of the disputed area.
Earlier on Sunday, Misri met Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The party is believed to set the tone of China's foreign policy.
On January 24 this year, Chinese spokesperson Mao Ning said: "We welcome Foreign Secretary Shri Vikram Misri's trip to China for the meeting of the Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism between China and India."
She said that last October, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached important common understandings on improving and growing bilateral relations when they met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan.
"Both sides agreed to improve and strengthen interactions, resume institutional dialogues as well as exchanges and cooperation in various fields and work to bring China-India relations back on the track of sound and steady growth at an early date," Mao said.
In recent months, there has been an increase in bilateral engagements between India and China after years of border standoff. Before Misri's visit to China, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had met National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Beijing in December last year.
with inputs from agencies
