China’s foreign minister Wang Yi to visit India August 18-19

Wang’s visit is a follow-up to Doval’s trip to Beijing last December and part of preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China at the end of this month

Updated on: Aug 16, 2025, 17:26:07 IST

By Rezaul H Laskar

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New Delhi: Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will visit India next week for talks with national security advisor Ajit Doval under the special representatives mechanism for addressing the border issue, the external affairs ministry said on Saturday.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will visit India next week for talks with national security advisor Ajit Doval. (Reuters)

Wang, who is also a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of China, is visiting India during August 18-19 at Doval’s invitation. He will also meet external affairs minister S Jaishankar, the ministry said in a brief statement.

“During his visit, [Wang] will hold the 24th round of the Special Representatives’ (SR) talks on the India-China boundary question with India’s SR, NSA Shri Doval,” the statement said.

Wang will visit days before Jaishankar travels to Russia during August 21-23 for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and to co-chair a meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) with first deputy prime minister Denis Manturov.

Also read: Apprised President Xi of recents developments in bilateral ties: Jaishankar

Both meetings are crucial for India’s ties with China and Russia amid strains in the relationship with the US.

Wang’s visit is a follow-up to Doval’s trip to Beijing last December and part of preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China at the end of this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, people familiar with the matter said.

Talks in the Special Representatives format resumed after Modi and President Xi Jinping met in the Russian city of Kazan on October 23 last year – two days after India and China reached an understanding on ending the military standoff on the LAC – and decided to revive several mechanisms to normalise bilateral ties and address the border dispute.

Also read: China vows support to Pakistan, calls for restraint after Pahalgam terror attack

The two Special Representatives are expected to consider several confidence-building measures to bolster peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), including resumption of border trade, and to discuss a mutually acceptable framework for settling the border issue, the people said. At their last meeting in December, Doval and Wang “resolved to inject more vitality into this process”, according to an Indian readout.

Since the end of the face-off in Ladakh sector of the LAC, which saw both sides amassing nearly 50,000 troops each, the two sides resumed the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra to the Tibet region after a gap of five years in April. This was followed by India resuming tourist visas for Chinese nationals in July.

India and China are in advanced negotiations on resuming direct flights and trade through selected border posts, and there has been “forward movement” on restrictions imposed by China on fertiliser exports to India, the people said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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