NEW DELHI: India and China decided on Monday to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and agreed in principle to resume direct flights as foreign secretary Vikram Misri met Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong in Beijing to discuss the next steps in normalising bilateral ties after a border standoff of more than four years.
The meeting between Misri and Sun marked the revival of the foreign secretary-vice foreign minister mechanism, the latest in a series of engagements since the two sides reached an understanding last October aimed at reducing tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Misri and Sun reviewed bilateral relations and “agreed to take certain people-centric steps to stabilise and rebuild ties”, the external affairs ministry said in a statement. The two sides decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage in the summer of 2025, and further discussions will be held on the modalities in line with existing agreements.
The two sides also “agreed in principle to resume direct air services” and the relevant technical authorities in India and China will “negotiate an updated framework” for this at an early date, the statement said.
They further agreed to take appropriate steps to promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think tank interactions. The two sides will also hold an early meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism to discuss the resumption of provision of hydrological data and other cooperation related to transborder rivers, the statement said.
The resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, which was suspended in 2020, was a key ask of the Indian side, while the Chinese side had focused on the easing of visa regulations and resumption of direct flights, also suspended in 2020, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. The people add that further discussions will be required to address the issue of visas.
During the meeting between Misri and Sun, the two sides took stock of extant mechanisms for functional exchanges, and “agreed to resume these dialogues step by step and to utilise them to address each other’s priority areas of interest and concern”, the statement said.
“Specific concerns in the economic and trade areas were discussed with a view to resolving these issues and promoting long-term policy transparency and predictability,” it added.
For long, India has had concerns about market access and non-tariff barriers that have resulted in trade being skewed in China’s favour. In the fiscal year 2024, two-way trade touched $118.4 billion, with India’s imports from China worth $101.7 billion, and exports were valued at $16.67 billion.
The statement said the two sides will use the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2025 to “redouble public diplomacy efforts to create better awareness about each other and restore mutual trust and confidence among the public”. In this context, the two sides will conduct commemorative activities to mark the anniversary.
The face-off that began in the Ladakh sector of the LAC in early 2020, and a brutal clash in Galwan Valley in June of that year which killed 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese troops, took bilateral ties to their lowest point since the 1962 border war.
Since India and China reached an understanding on disengagement of forces at the two remaining “friction points” of Demchok and Depsang on October 21 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met two days later in Russia, the two sides have revived several mechanisms to address their long-standing border dispute and to normalise relations.
In recent weeks, the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries have met on the margins of multilateral meetings and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval travelled to Beijing in December for a meeting of the Special Representatives on the border issue. Wang is also the Special Representative for the Chinese side, and this was their second meeting in less than five months.
Before his talks with the Chinese vice foreign minister, Misri met foreign minister Wang Yi, who said India and China should “meet each other halfway” and “commit to mutual understanding [and] mutual support”, and avoid “mutual suspicion [and] mutual alienation”, according to a readout in Mandarin from China’s foreign ministry.
Wang also said the “improvement and development of China-India relations is fully in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries” and is “conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the Global South”.
Misri also met the minister of the international department of the Communist Party of China, Liu Jianchao.
India has adopted a more cautious and nuanced approach to these meetings, while China has called for putting the border issue in its “appropriate place” in the overall relationship, a signal that the two sides should take forward trade and investment ties.