India and China on Sunday looked to bring recently strained relations back on track as they held key bilateral ministerial talks in Beijing, with Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd) VK Singh in China on a three-day visit.
Singh, who will also attend the first BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Monday, told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in bilateral talks at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing that “India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China.”
This is the first major visit from India after Delhi became the only major country to boycott President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road summit on May 14.
A meeting on June 9 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana has helped bring ties back on track, with officials on both sides saying that in the lead up to the September BRICS summit, when PM Modi will visit China, they didn’t expect the impact of the the Belt and Road boycott to linger.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had been scheduled to attend Monday’s first ever standalone BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting – previous interactions among the foreign ministers of the grouping had only been held on the sidelines of other summit – but as General Singh told Wang, “She wanted to come but then health and other restrictions did not permit her. But she was looking forward to meeting you.”
MUTUAL RESPECT AND COOPERATION
Singh said that Modi and Xi “have laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation and how to improve already existing mechanisms so that more trade, more commerce and more people to people contacts can take place.”
“We both as two Asian neighbours, two growing economies, two people with very ancient relations, can mark the path for others to follow,” he said, adding that “India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China.”
BRICS IN SEPTEMBER
The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will hold their first summit on Monday, as they look to firm up the outcomes leading up to the BRICS Summit in September. They will also call on China’s President Xi Jinping.
Xi’s government is going all out to ensure the BRICS summit in September, which Xi will host in Xiamen in Fujian province where he was earlier a provincial leader, will be seen as a success, with the Communist Party of China also hosting a key once-in-five-year leadership congress, likely to be held in Beijing the following month.
Also read: Harsh Vardhan in China: India will prove importance of cow through science.
Source:- India Today
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