Chinese foreign minister's visit to India postponed

A proposed visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to India has been postponed at a time when Beijing's stand on New Delhi's recent moves on Jammu and Kashmir struck a jarring note to the efforts being made by both the countries to mend bilateral relations.

Wang was expected to visit New Delhi early next week for a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Wang and Doval are Special Representatives of China and India for negotiations to resolve the protracted boundary dispute. Wang was also expected to hold meetings with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to discuss about the forthcoming second “informal summit” between Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

New Delhi and Beijing are in touch to reschedule the visit, sources said.

Wang will visit Islamabad on Saturday for a trilateral meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani. He was expected to travel to New Delhi from Islamabad.

His visit to New Delhi has been cancelled weeks after China joined Pakistan to oppose India's decisions to strip its Jammu and Kashmir state of the special status and reorganise it into two Union Territories. Beijing had denounced New Delhi's decisions as “unilateral” and “unacceptable”, rejecting the Modi government's argument that the moves on J&K were “internal” affairs of India. China also joined Pakistan to make an unsuccessful attempt to bring back the issue of J&K back on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council.

Beijing's repeated critical statements on New Delhi's recent moves on Kashmir struck a jarring note to the bonhomie that marked the relations between India and China over the past 16 months since Modi and Xi had an “informal summit” at Wuhan in Central China in April 2018. The “informal summit” brought about a thaw in the India-China relations, which had hit a new low over the 72-day-long military stand-off at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan in June-August, 2017.

Though Modi is set to host Xi for the second “informal summit” later this year, China's stand on India's moves on J&K cast a shadow over the future of the détente between the two neighbours.