Foreign secretary Misri to visit Beijing next week

Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri will visit Beijing on 26-27 January for a meeting of the foreign secretary-vice minister mechanism between India and China, the ministry of external affairs said on Thursday.

Misri’s visit is the second such high-level meeting within a month.

National security advisor Ajit Doval met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing on 18 December to discuss ongoing tensions. Both Doval and Yi stressed on the need for effective measures to maintain stability along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which was the primary concern for tensions between the two countries since 2020.

Both visits point to a significant thaw in Indo-China relations after both the countries reached a disengagement accord at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in October last year.

The two visits come after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the BRICS summit in Kazan in October last year.

Misri’s two-days visit to Beijing aims at further improving ties between both the countries.

These recent high-profile visits are also part of a broader effort by both the countries to normalize relations and push for discussions on political, economic and people-to-people exchanges,

This year marks the 75^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and China, with both countries expected to mark the milestone by addressing historical grievances and contemporary challenges.