ANKARA

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar is visiting China for the first time in five years, amid improving bilateral ties between the two Himalayan neighbors.

Jaishankar met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on his arrival in Beijing before proceeding to the northern city of Tianjin to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers’ summit on Tuesday.

Han told Jaishankar that China and India were "major developing countries and important members of the Global South," according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua News.

He said Beijing and New Delhi should adhere to high-level guidance, steadily promote pragmatic cooperation, respect each other's concerns, and foster sustained, healthy, and stable development in bilateral relations.

According to a statement by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Jaishankar noted that bilateral ties have been improving “steadily,” and said: “I am confident that my discussions in this visit will maintain that positive trajectory.”

This visit comes after the two countries last October confirmed a new border patrolling arrangement, leading to military disengagement and easing tensions that had peaked during the deadly 2020 clashes, in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed.

Later that month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, marking their first formal face-to-face discussions in the five years following the Ladakh clashes.

Jaishankar last visited China in August 2019 — shortly after New Delhi repealed the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and reorganized the region into two union territories, including Ladakh, which borders China. In 2020, military tensions in the same region escalated into deadly clashes.

During his meeting with Han, Jaishankar said: "The international situation, as we meet today … is very complex,” and as neighboring nations and major economies, “an open exchange of views and perspectives between India and China is very important."

China last month hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) defense chiefs in Qingdao — a meeting that concluded without a joint statement after Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh refused to sign it.

The SCO, established in 2001, is an intergovernmental organization comprising 10 member states – China, Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.

Top diplomats meet

Chinese and Indian foreign ministers also met in Beijing.

Wang Yi told Jaishankar that the essence of China-India relations “is how to live in harmony and achieve mutual success.”

“The two sides should stand on high ground, seek long-term strategies, adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship,“ Wang said, calling for “a way for the two countries to get along with each other with mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development, and win-win cooperation.”

He said China’s ties with India “are not directed against any third party and should not be interfered with by any third party.”

“The two sides should trust each other instead of suspicion, cooperate with each other instead of competing with each other, and achieve each other instead of consuming each other.”

According to a statement from New Delhi, the Indian foreign minister stressed the “positive impact of peace and tranquility in the border for the smooth development in bilateral relations and supported continued efforts towards de-escalation and border management.”

Jaishankar underlined the “need for cooperation on trans-border rivers, including the resumption of provision of hydrological data by the Chinese side.”

He also took up “restrictive trade measures and roadblocks to economic cooperation,” the statement said.