Jaishankar set to visit China for SCO meet, his first since 2020 military standoff

S Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to visit China around July 13 to attend a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

It would be Jaishankar's first visit to China after the ties between the two countries came under severe strain following the 2020 military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

The external affairs minister is likely to travel to Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi before going to Tianjin for the conclave of the SCO foreign ministers that will be held on July 14 and 15, the people cited above said.

Jaishankar's visit is taking place less than three weeks after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh travelled to the Chinese port city of Qingdao to participate in the SCO defence ministers' conference.

China is the current chair of the SCO and it is hosting the meetings of the grouping in that capacity.

The military standoff in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020 and a deadly clash at the Galwan Valley in June that year resulted in a severe strain in ties between the two neighbours.

The face-off effectively ended following completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21.

In December, NSA Ajit Doval visited Beijing and held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi under the framework of Special Representatives (SR) dialogue on the boundary dispute.

Doval visited China last month as well for a meeting of top security officials of the SCO member nations.

The decision to revive the SR mechanism and other such dialogue formats was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan on October 23.

The Modi-Xi meeting came two days after India and China firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok.

In the last few months, India and China have initiated a number of measures to repair the bilateral ties.

Last month, the two sides resumed the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra after a gap of nearly five years.