China foreign minister to visit India for first time since 2019
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India Friday, a person familiar with the matter said, the highest-level visit from Beijing since deadly clashes along their border in 2020.
The senior diplomat is scheduled to meet National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, the official said, adding that they are set to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and their own Himalayan conflict.
India and China have continued to seek a resolution to the border spat in recent months, the official said.
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India’s Ministry of External Affairs and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t immediately respond to requests for confirmation.
India and China have taken a common position toward Russia, with both nations calling for peace while abstaining from a vote on a United Nations draft resolution calling on Vladimir Putin to withdraw forces from Ukraine.
India’s reluctance to criticize Russia, its main supplier of weapons, has put it at odds with major democracies and fellow members of the Quad, which includes the US, Australia and Japan.
Over the last few days, President Joe Biden has said India’s position on Russia’s war on Ukraine has been “somewhat shaky” compared with other Quad nations.
Prime ministers Scott Morrison and Fumio Kishida pressed Indian leader Narendra Modi on the issue in recent meetings.
Military commanders of China and India have made only incremental progress in 15 meetings over the past two years, agreeing to pull back troops from three friction points along the disputed Himalayan border.
Soldiers remain deployed toe-to-toe in other locations, with each side moving thousands of soldiers, artillery guns, tanks and fighter jets to the border since the dispute began two years ago.
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