Amid continuing LAC stand-off, Rajnath Singh, Chinese Defence Minister to run into each other at SCO meet

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his counterpart in the Chinese Government, Wei Fenghe, will run into each other during a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe on Wednesday – ahead of another round of talks between the military commanders of the two nations to resolve the stand-off in eastern Ladakh.

“Today, I am leaving for Tajikistan on a three-day visit. I would be taking part in this year’s SCO Defence Ministers' meet which is being held in Dushanbe. I look forward to discussing issues pertaining to defence and regional cooperation,” Singh posted on Twitter, as she left New Delhi for Dushanbe on Tuesday.

Though no bilateral meeting between Singh and Wei on the sideline of the SCO meet has been scheduled yet, speculation is rife over the possibility of the two using the opportunity and exchanging views on efforts to resolve the 15-month-long stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two nations in eastern Ladakh.

The senior commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA would soon hold another round of talks – the 12th since the stand-off started in April-May, 2020.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterpart Wang Yi had a bilateral meeting in Dushanbe on July 14 last – on the sideline of a conclave of the SCO Foreign Ministers.

Singh and Jaishankar had held bilateral meetings with Wei and Wang on the sidelines of the conclaves of the SCO Defence and Foreign Ministers in Moscow in September last year – adding momentum to the negotiation to resolve the stand-off. The meetings followed by negotiations by the diplomats and military commanders finally led to the mutual withdrawal of troops from both banks of Pangong Tso in February. Though the diplomats and the military commanders of the two sides had several rounds of talks since then, they could not agree on disengagement from the other face-off points along the LAC, like Hot Springs, Depsang and Gogra Post, over the past four months.