Chinese Foreign Minister to visit India this month, discuss boundary issues

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is likely to visit India at the end of this month to hold talks with National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on the boundary issues between the two countries, sources said.

During the visit, Wang is expected to also hold talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, there is no official announcement on the visit yet.

This will be the 22nd round of boundary talks between the two countries. The previous talks between Doval and Wang -- who are the designated Special Representatives (SRs) for the boundary talks -- were held at Chengdu in China in November last year.

The two officials, back then, had emphasised on maintaining peace and tranquillity at the border and stressed that the boundary question should not affect the overall development of the bilateral relationship.

Both the representatives had acknowledged that, as the two large developing countries engaged in their national modernisation, relations between India and China transcend their bilateral dimensions.

Incursions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has remained a bone of contention between China and India. In 2017, a 73-day standoff between the armies of the two countries in Doklam -- known as the Doklam crisis -- had emerged as a major challenge in the bilateral relations between New Delhi and Beijing.

This will be the first visit by a senior Chinese government official after the second informal summit between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mamallapuram back in October, this year.