Visit and Talks with Chinese Foreign Minister may signal thaw in Sino-Indian Border Face offs

The Foreign Ministers of China and India  Qin Gang and S Jaishankar held bilateral meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit on invite of S Jaishankar. Notably the visit was announced earlier but the bilateral meet was not confirmed till yesterday. The last time that previous Chinese hardline Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited New Delhi was in 2019. In 2020 China started the Ladakh stand off in Covid lockdown

The talks are significant since even US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken attending G-20 summit refused to hold bilaterals with Russian Sergey Lavrov or the Chinese Minister. Jaishankar’s meet with Qin Yang was for 30 minutes after which a separate bilateral with Blinken took place. China’s move towards India can be seen as signal of India’s rising importance in resolving a ceasefire in Ukraine. Yesterday Jaishankar held wide discussions with Sergey Lavrov. To emphasise India’s growing leadership stature, today during the G-20 summit Sergey Lavrov stated that he would like to apologise to host India for the behaviour of the Western delegations in the summit.

Only last week India had made it clear that there cannot be peace and normal relations as long as the Border situation is not resolved. After the meet, Jaishankar tweeted that the focus was on current challenges to the relations, especially Peace and tranquillity in the Border areas. The talks and the Tweet are a signal that China maybe moving towards a pull back from the current aggressive situation, amidst India’s determination to not back off from its stand.

The Chinese aggression, India’s quick, firm response and resulting stand off for 3 years has not led to any major gains for China. Faced with increasing hostile signals from US and NATO on Taiwan and against China’s 12 point Ukraine -Russia ceasefire plan, the Chinese may be coming to a conclusion that peace with India on its terms are a priority.

All Ministers will also be meeting the Prime Minister, who in the Welcome address stated that Global governance has failed and the International community is looking towards the G-20 Nations to resolve global challenges of growth, financial stability, terrorism, food and development. This was a couched rebuke after the G-20 Finance Ministers had failed to arrive at a joint communiqué at Bengaluru. Prime Minister Modi called on G-20 leaders to take inspiration from India – the land of Gandhi and Budha’s civilization ethos. “Let us focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us all”