JOIN USIndia and China have lined up back-to-back engagements to mend bilateral relations, which hit a new low during the military face-off at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan earlier this year.
NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar met Li Wei, president of Development Research Council of China, in Beijing on Tuesday. The meeting comes just days before External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is set to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Russia-India-China trilateral talks in New Delhi early next week.
The meeting between Sushma and Wang is likely to be followed by the 20th round of boundary negotiation by the Special Representatives of India and China – Prime Minister Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi.
A senior official told DH in New Delhi that both India and China were keen to schedule more such engagements in the coming months to bring the ties back on track. He said that the Sushma-Wang meeting early next week might set the stage for more high-level interactions early next year.
The meeting between Sushma and Wang in New Delhi is going to be the first between the two after the 72-day-long face-off between the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army of China ended on August 28.
The face-off further strained the bilateral ties, which were already plagued by several irritants, including China's policy of shielding terrorists based in Pakistan from United Nations sanctions and blocking India's bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
New Delhi has also been opposed to Beijing's Belt-and-Road cross-continental connectivity initiative, particularly to its key component China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The corridor is proposed to pass through areas India claims as its own but accuses Pakistan of illegally occupying. Beijing has been upset over India's growing strategic convergence with US and Japan in Indo-Pacific.
The dialogue between NITI Ayog and DRC of China provides an important platform for both sides to discuss key macro-economic issues impacting both countries and areas of mutual interest.
According to a press release issued in New Delhi, the 3rd NITI-DRC dialogue, which was held in Beijing on Tuesday, "Enabled an in-depth interaction between the two delegations on the world economic prospects, India-China economic cooperation and practices for sustainable growth in the context of global uncertainty and weak global growth."