Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong is likely to travel to India this week for what will be the second high-level bilateral visit from either side this year, following foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s visit to Beijing in January during which Sun and Misri had agreed to a slew of measures aimed at normalizing ties.The 2-day visit by Sun will be the latest reinforcement of the improvement in bilateral ties resulting from the completion of the troop disengagement process in eastern Ladakh, after almost 5 years of a military standoff that wrecked the relationship. This was quickly followed by a meeting of PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Russia in October and the resumption of the Special Representatives’ (SR) Talks on the Boundary Question 2 months later.ToI has learnt that Sun will arrive in India on Thursday for a 2-day visit that will likely see him calling on NSA Ajit Doval, apart from holding talks under the foreign secretary-vice minister mechanism. Doval is also likely to host the Chinese Special Representative, Wang Yi, who doubles up as foreign minister, later this year for another round of SR talks.The meeting this week will be an important occasion for India and China to review progress on steps announced in January to normalize the relationship. The 2 sides had then agreed to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer of 2025, an Indian demand that has been fulfilled. While there has also been progress in cooperation on trans-border rivers, both sides are yet to resume direct air services between the 2 countries, something they had agreed to do “in principle” in January.The 2 sides will likely also touch upon the possibility of a visit by PM Narendra Modi to China in September to cap a year of détente in the bilateral relationship. Modi has been invited for the SCO summit in Tianjin but is yet to confirm his participation. The summit will be preceded by a meeting of the foreign ministers which external affairs minister S Jaishankar is likely to attend. The visit by Sun, who served as ambassador to India when the eastern Ladakh standoff erupted, also signals an intent on the part of both sides to build upon the nascent thaw in the relationship, not allowing India-Pakistan hostilities to come in the way.India wants dialogue mechanisms to be resumed step by step, in a way that allows both sides to address each other’s concerns. India is likely to raise its concerns related to trade in the meeting, as it seeks a more transparent and predictable economic and trade relationship. Both sides in the last Misri-Sun meeting had also agreed to facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions.
