(TibetanReview.net, Jul15’25) – India’s External Affairs Minister Mr S Jaishankar has said Jul 14 that India-China relations had made good progress in the last nine months as he met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during his ongoing three-day visit to China to attend the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tianjin on Jul 15. He has also raised a number of grave and significant issues in his meetings with top Chinese leaders that also included Vice-President Han Zheng and President Xi Jinping.
Following the meeting in Beijing with Wang on Jul 14, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said, “The two sides agreed to take additional practical steps, including travel to each other’s country and direct flight connectivity, for facilitating people-to-people exchanges.”
This is Jaishankar’s first visit to Beijing since 2020.when bilateral ties plummeted to decades-long low following violent border clashes between the two sides at Galwan valley in Ladakh.
India, the scmp.com Jul 14 quoted him as saying, valued China’s recent reopening of access to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar in Tibet to Indian pilgrims for their Kailash Mansarovar Yatra trek. This had remained suspended for five years over border tensions after the Covid pandemic.
“Continued normalisation of our ties can produce mutually beneficial outcomes,” Jaishankar has said, while referring to a series of impediments to it that needed to be addressed. These included restrictive trade measures and roadblocks to economic coordination. He has also sought cooperation on transborder rivers, including the resumption of sharing hydrological data by the Chinese side.
According to Reuters news agency Jul 14, Jaishankar also sought to drive home the point that resolving friction along their Tibet-border and the ability to maintain peace were fundamental for mutual trust between India and China.
The two sides must resolve friction along their border, pull back troops and avoid “restrictive trade measures” to normalise their relationship, the report cited Jaishankar as having emphasized while good progress had been made in the last nine months.
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According to news18.com Jul 14, Jaishankar also emphasized India’s zero-tolerance approach against terrorism. His remarks on terrorism assumed significance as India has been exposing China’s all-weather ally, Pakistan, for cross-border terrorism on global platforms in the wake of Operation Sindoor, the report noted. It cited a top Indian military official as having said China was providing “all possible support” to Pakistan during the latter’s conflict with India during Operation Sindoor.
The operation was launched by India in retaliation for Pakistan’s alleged support for and hosting of training camps for terrorists who gunned down 26 tourists at Pahalgam town in Jammu and Kashmir on Apr 22.
Jaishankar was also stated to have reminded China of the anti-terror mission of the SCO. “Tomorrow, we will be meeting in the format of the SCO, whose primary mandate is to combat terrorism, separatism and extremism. This is a shared concern and India hopes that zero tolerance for terrorism will be strongly upheld,” firstpost.com Jul 14 quoted him as saying.
India has made it clear in not so a subtle message to China that Beijing should not adopt double standards when it comes to combating terrorism, noted the etvbharat.com
Jul 14.
Wang, in his turn, has said the two countries should adhere to the direction of good-neighbourliness and friendship, and find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation, reported China’s state news agency Xinhua Jul 14.
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Chinese Vice-President Han has called for practical cooperation and mutual respect with India while meeting with Jaishankar shortly after the latter’s arrival in the country earlier in the day. The two sides should “steadily advance practical cooperation, respect each other’s concerns and promote the sustained, healthy and stable development of [bilateral] relations”, state news agency Xinhua quoted Han as having said.
And in his meeting with Xi on Jul 15, ahead of the SCO meeting, Jaishankar said he apprised he Chinese President about the recent development of the India-China relationship, reported the hindustantimes.com Jul 15.
“Called on President Xi Jinping this morning in Beijing along with my fellow SCO Foreign Ministers. Conveyed the greetings of President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Apprised President Xi of the recent development of our bilateral ties. Value the guidance of our leaders in that regard,” Jaishankar tweeted.
China is this year’s rotating chair of the SCO – a 10-member bloc focused on economic and security interests. In addition to China and India, it includes Russia, Belarus, Iran, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.