Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visiting India this month

Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi is set to visit India later this month to hold boundary talks with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday (December 4).

Doval and Wang are the designated Special Representatives (SRs) of the two countries for the boundary talks.

Besides holding boundary talks with Doval, he will have an extensive dialogue with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

It will be the first visit by a senior Chinese leader to India after the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mamallapuram in October.

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During Wang’s visit, the two sides are likely to review implementation of decisions taken at the summit.

“The Chinese foreign minister is visiting India this month,” said a source.

Wang was to visit India for the SR talks in September but the trip was postponed then.

The two sides have already held over 20 rounds of talks under the framework of SR dialogue which was set up to find an early solution to the border dispute.

The India-China border dispute covers 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.

Both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

The focus of the second informal summit between Modi and Xi was to further broaden India-China ties.

The two leaders held their first informal summit in April last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan months after bilateral ties came under severe strain following a 73-day standoff between the armies of the two countries in Doklam.