EAM S. Jaishankar to Attend SCO Foreign Ministers' Meeting in China | Key Diplomatic Visit

Foreign Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is to visit China next week to attend the foreign ministers meeting of SCO bloc in the Chinese city of Tianjin, an official release here said on Saturday.

The Council of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the SCO will meet in Tianjin, July 15, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement here said Saturday. Besides appearing at the SCO meeting, Jaishankar will also visit China, the spokeswoman added, stating it in word.

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The statement noted that the head of the bloc permanent bodies, as well as foreign ministers of other SCO member states arriving in the country as the guest of the member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and the Foreign Minister Wang Yi, will take part in the meeting.

It said that the ministers will discuss cooperation of SCO in different areas or key international and regional challenges. The SCO is made up of 10 countries namely; China, Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.

Various problems between the two nations such as the ongoing normalisation between the two nations, blockage of the rare earth elements by China that are needed in production of a myriad of items, such as automobiles, will likely play out in the discussions.

The reports had earlier claimed that Jaishankar will travel to Beijing on July 13 to hold talks with Wang.

The visit of Jaishankar is after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor to China.

The visit of Jaishankar would be the first trip to China since the relations between the two nations were strained to its extreme way back in 2020, after the military confrontation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the northeastern state of Ladakh.

Wang is also likely to visit India next month, where he can have yet another set of talks with NSA Doval within the format of Special Representatives (SR) dialogue on the boundary dispute, sources told India Today. Wang and Doval, are the appointed SRs of the boundary mechanism.

The two countries conducted 23 rounds of negotiations through the SRs mechanism to solve the disputed boundary crossing 3,488 km but in vain. Last month Defence Minister Singh travelled to the Chinese port city of Qingdao to attend the SCO defence ministers conference.

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The chair of the SCO is in the hands of China and it is hosting the SCO grouping in this capacity.

In his discussions with Chinese Defence Minister Gen Dong Jun on June 26, Singh suggested that both India and China think upon resolving the issues that he referred to as complex issues under a systematic roadmap with de-escalating tensions along the borders and updating the existing mechanism of demarcating the borders.

Singh and Dong also discussed the aspects of maintaining peace and tranquillity regarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in bilateral talks on the sidelines of a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

In another comment, Singh said good neighbourly conditions must be established so maximum mutual benefits can be obtained and urged the taking of action on the ground to ease the so-called trust deficit caused by the 2020 standoff over the Sino-Indian border in eastern Ladakh in an Indian readout to the June 27 meeting.

Commenting on the statement by Singh, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning had remarked that the problem of boundary question is complex, and this question will not be resolved soon".

The tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh started in May of 2020, and what became known as the bloody incident with the participation of the military of China and India in June of 2020 in the Galwan Valley led to a serious deterioration of relations between the two neighbours.

The face-off was efficiently resolved when the completion of the disengagement process was complete at the last two areas of friction at Demchok and Depsang in an agreement that was finalised on October 21. China and India are right now in the process of normalising relations.

This was decided during a meeting of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia on October 23 and rebirth of the SR mechanism and other such dialogue formats was commanded. Two days before the Modi-Xi meet, India and China had finalized a pact to disengage in Depsang and Demchok.

Over the past several months, India and China have embarked on several steps to restore the bilateral friendship. In the recent past, the two sides restarted the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra after an interval of almost five years.

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