Wang Yi comes to India

On Thursday (March 24), China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi landed in New Delhi for an unannounced vi

On Thursday (March 24), China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi landed in New Delhi for an unannounced visit – his first since the border crisis along the Line of Actual Control began in April 2020. In talks the following day, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar underlined to Wang that there can be no normality in India-China ties unless the troops amassed at the LAC were withdrawn.

The visit underlined the broad differences between both sides particularly on the border issue, which the Chinese Foreign Minister said should be kept in an “appropriate place” in the relationship, a stand that is different from India’s insistence that there be peace on the border for the rest of the relationship to develop.

Read The Hindu’s report on Wang’s visit and all the key takeaways from his talks with Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval here.

Before landing in New Delhi, Wang made a surprise stopover in Kabul, the first visit from China since the Taliban’s return. That followed his attendance at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Islamabad. In Pakistan, he discussed with Prime Minister Imran Khan plans to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan. China is also hosting this week a meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbours, the third such meet. India hasn’t been invited, while Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to attend, his first visit to China after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Ukraine issue was also discussed in New Delhi, and one that many Chinese observers have particularly paid attention to, viewing it as one area of commonality between India and China amid plenty of other differences. The Hindu interviewed Hu Shisheng, an expert on India-China relations, for a perspective from Beijing on how it views the Ukraine crisis and the current geopolitical moment, which may have been one driver behind Wang Yi’s desire to visit India.

The Hindu in an editorial said it is possible that Wang’s outreach stems from a desire to compare notes on Ukraine, where India and China find themselves at odds with the western sanctions regime that threatens to isolate Russia and split global transactions into a “dollar vs non-dollar” system, while also finding themselves not entirely comfortable with Vladimir Putin’s actions. At the same time, the editorial argued, regardless of any common understanding on other issues, it is clear that New Delhi and Beijing cannot simply pick up the threads of their conversation until there is a full understanding of events since April 2020, and demobilisation by the PLA, followed by the disengagement of troops, is completed.

In this episode of Worldview, The Hindu’s Diplomatic Affairs Editor Suhasini Haidar presents a detailed analysis of Wang’s visit and what it means for bilateral relations between the two countries. You can read or watch her analysis here.