(TibetanReview.net, Apr28’25) – China has confirmed today India’s External Affairs Ministry statement Apr 22 that the annual Indian pilgrimage to Mt Kailash and lake Mansarovar will resume and take place over Jun-Aug this year after a hiatus of five years. Its Foreign Ministry has cited this as a people-to-people and cultural exchanges programme as well as this year being the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two sides.
Indian pilgrimages to the sacred mountains and lakes in Xizang are an important aspect of China-India people-to-people and cultural exchanges; Mount Kangrinboqe and Mapam Yumco Lake, located in Xizang, China, are sacred sites for believers of several religions, including Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, China’s official globaltimes.cn Apr 28 cited Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun as saying.
Xizang is China’s Sinicized name for Tibet under its ongoing assimilation policy while Kangrinboqe and Mapam Yumco are Chinese pinyin renditions of the Tibetan names for Mt Kailash and lake Mansarovar, which are both the established Indian names for the two sacred sites.
According to the consensus reached between China and India, the pilgrimage for Indian pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred mountains and lakes will resume this summer, and both sides are currently working on the necessary preparations, Guo has said.
He has also sought to point out that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India.
Guo has also said, “China stands ready to work with India to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and promote the healthy and stable development of China-India relations.”
The report cited China’s Foreign Ministry as saying China and India’s special representatives on the boundary question held their 23rd meeting in Beijing on Dec 18, 2024 after a gap of five years, reaching a six-point consensus.
For India, the main concern is whether China can ever be trusted to abide by negotiated agreements, given its mid-2020 Galwan Valley clashes experience and which is the main reason why normalizing bilateral ties has become difficult.
The report said, citing China’s official Xinhua news agency, that at their 2024 boundary meeting, the two sides agreed to further refine the rules for border area management and strengthen the construction of trust-building measures, to continue enhancing cross-border exchanges and cooperation to promote the resumption of Indian pilgrims’ visits to “China’s Xizang”, and to further strengthen the construction of the special representatives meeting mechanism.
The report called the resumption of the annual pilgrimage a reflection of both sides’ positive attitude toward implementing the consensus.
“Communication and cooperation at various levels are gradually being restored, and the current progress of this resumption can be seen as ‘a phased achievement,’ which is also of great significance to India,” Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying in an earlier interview.