(TibetanReview.net, May08’24) —After an unusual delay that has lasted 18 months amid continuing frayed bilateral ties following a particularly violent mid-2020 border clash in an eastern Ladakh border area, China has finally designated a senior diplomat as its new ambassador to India. The appointment is not necessarily seen as a new start in ties between the two counties.
The new ambassador, Xu Feihong, has previously served as Ambassador to Afghanistan and Romania, and will assume his responsibilities in New Delhi shortly, reported India’s PTI news Agency May 8, citing the Chinese foreign ministry.
Xu will succeed Sun Weidong, who completed his tenure in Oct 2022. Sun, who was China’s envoy to Pakistan before his India stint, is currently the Vice Foreign Minister overseeing China’s South Asia policy.
Xu’s appointment comes amid protracted military and diplomatic negotiations between Beijing and New Delhi to resolve the prolonged military standoff along the Ladakh border.
Relations between the two countries nosedived and has remained frozen except for trade ever since the eastern Ladakh border standoff erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Tso (lake) area.
The two sides have so far held 21 rounds of corps commanders-level talks in attempts to resolve the standoff.
The report cited the Chinese military as saying that so far the two sides have agreed to disengage from four points, namely the Galwan Valley, the Pangong Lake, Hot Springs, and Jianan Daban (Gogra).
India is now pressing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to disengage from the Depsang and Demchok areas, maintaining that there cannot be restoration of normalcy in its relations with China as long as the state of the borders remains abnormal.
Given this background, the appointment of Xu may signal a desire for minimal diplomatic gestures, but underlying mistrust and strategic concerns persist, noted a Firstpost.com report May 8.
Against the backdrop of geopolitical shifts and President Xi’s diplomatic manoeuvres, the trajectory of Sino-Indian relations remains uncertain, with both countries cautiously balancing cooperation and confrontation, the report added.
Meanwhile, with three of its warships now reaching Singapore on May 6, India is all set to conduct naval exercises with `friendly’ countries in the contentious South China Sea, where a belligerent Beijing is locked in territorial disputes with its neighbours, reported the timesofindia.com May 7.
The report noted that the long-range operational deployment of guided-missile destroyer INS Delhi, fleet tanker INS Shakti and anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kiltan to the South China Sea, under Eastern Fleet commander Rear Admiral Rajesh Dhankhar, comes at a time when the Indian Navy is also closely monitoring Chinese satellite and missile tracking ships in the Indian Ocean Region.
With an aggressive China figuring high on their radar screens, India has been steadily upgrading defence ties with Asean countries like Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines through regular joint exercises, military exchanges and training programmes, the report added.