E-Paper
New envoy to China comes with rare experience of handling Taiwan-India ties
Pradeep Rawat, a 1990 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, served as the head, or director general, of the India-Taipei Association, which is how India’s diplomatic mission is designated in Taiwan, between 2009 and 2013.
India’s new ambassador to China, Pradeep Kumar Rawat, who assumed charge in Beijing on Monday, brings to the table the rare experience of also serving as India’s top diplomat in Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy which China claims as a breakaway region.
Rawat, a 1990 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, served as the head, or director general, of the India-Taipei Association (ITA), which is how India’s diplomatic mission is designated in Taiwan, between 2009 and 2013.
As the new envoy takes over in the backdrop of the dragging Sino-India military standoff in eastern Ladakh, his experience in negotiating India-Taiwan ties - with an aggressive China always looming large in the background - could come in handy.
Beijing, which pushes the “one China principle”, says Taiwan is an “inalienable” part of its territory.
It has never ruled out using force to unify the self-ruled island and has recently adopted a militarily aggressive posture against it.
China routinely protests official engagements between Taiwan and any other country including India.
It was in 1995 that the two countries established representative offices in each other’s capitals, namely Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India (TECC) for ROC (Taiwan) in New Delhi and the ITA in Taipei.
Rawat, a Mandarin speaker, has served twice in Beijing besides being posted in Hong Kong.
“He (Rawat) opted to learn Mandarin Chinese as his foreign language and served in Hong Kong and Beijing between 1992 and 1997…Ambassador Rawat started his second tenure in Beijing in 2003 as Counsellor and ended in 2007 as Deputy Chief of Mission,” a snapshot of his profile on the Indian embassy website said.
Rawat’s China appointment coincides, for the first time, with the posting of a few young Indian diplomats trained in Mandarin in Taiwan to Beijing.
Until recently, most Indian diplomats learning Mandarin would do so at a designated Chinese university in Beijing.
As the joint secretary of the division handling China-related issues, the new ambassador was part of the core team involved in negotiations following the Doklam standoff between the two countries in 2017.
“HE Shri. Pradeep Kumar Rawat, Ambassador of India to the People’s Republic of China assumed charge @EOIBeijing today”, the Indian Embassy here tweeted on Monday.
Rawat arrived in China on March 4 and underwent mandatory quarantine as per China’s Covid-19 protocols.
Rawat succeeds Ambassador Vikram Misri, who left for New Delhi in December, and has since been appointed as the Deputy National Security Advisor.
Rawat was previously India’s ambassador to the Netherlands, and has also been ambassador of India to Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
