India-China tension: All eyes on Jaishankar-Wang meeting in Moscow

With Indian and Chinese soldiers locked in an intense stand-off in eastern Ladakh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterpart from China, Wang Yi, are likely to meet in Moscow on Thursday and make another attempt to defuse tension along the disputed boundary between the two nations.

Jaishankar and Wang are expected to hold a bilateral meeting on the side-line of a Foreign Ministers' conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Moscow. They will also have a separate luncheon with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who has been overseeing Moscow’s discreet diplomacy with New Delhi and Beijing to help resolve the military stand-off.

Read | India-China row: Situation remains tense in Ladakh

The External Affairs Minister already had a bilateral meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister on Wednesday and briefed him about the latest situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto border between the two nations.

Jaishankar is expected to convey to Wang on Thursday that escalation of tension on the banks of Pangong Tso (lake) over the past few days had underlined the grave risk that Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) poses to the future of overall relations between the two nations by not adhering to the understand it had reached with the Indian Army a couple of months back for the phased withdrawal of front-line troops from face-off points, a source in New Delhi told the DH.

He is likely to drive home the point during his discussion with the Chinese Foreign Minister that restoration of peace and tranquillity along the LAC is a pre-requisite for any attempt to bring bilateral relations between the two countries back on track. He is also expected to insist on strict adherence to the agreements and protocols the two nations had inked in the past to maintain peace in the border region.

New Delhi is keen to send across the message to Beijing that business cannot be as usual between India and China unless the PLA withdraws its troops to restore the status quo ante along the disputed boundary between the two nations and refrains from making further unilateral moves to push the LAC westwards.

During the meeting, Jaishankar is likely to assisted by Joint Secretary (East Asia) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Naveen Upadhyay, who has been coordinating New Delhi’s diplomatic engagement with Beijing to resolve the stand-off ever since it started in early May. The diplomats of India and China were in touch on Tuesday and Wednesday to set the stage for the meeting between the Ministers on Thursday.

The talks between Jaishankar and Wang is going to be the second high-level engagement between India and China in less than a week. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart on the side-line of another SCO meet in Moscow last Friday.