Beijing, August 12: Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing and held discussions related to mutual regional and global issues.
Jaishankar, who embarked on an official three-day visit to Beijing to co-chair the second conference of the China-India High-Level Mechanism (HLM) on people-to-people and cultural exchanges, said that for the stability in the region, New Delhi’s relationship with Beijing should be a factor.
Jaishankar’s China’s visit marked the first official visit by him to the nation after assuming the office in May this year following the Lok Sabha Election 2019.
Jaishankar said India-China relationship has maintained a unique place in international politics and “our leaders have worked to recognize this reality” through years, according to ANI news reports.
Jaishankar along with his Chinese counterpart will prepare a ground for the 2nd informal summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to take place later this year.
The development to hold the HLM conference was made during the maiden summit between Xi and Mosi in last year’s April in Wuhan.
In an official statement, the ministry of external affairs had said, “The second HLM meeting will provide an opportunity to follow up on the outcomes of the first HLM meeting and discuss new initiatives for enhancing people-to-people exchanges between our two countries.”
During a meeting with Wang, the EAM reiterated: “Deep, consultative and open views were shared between our leaders at Wuhan summit last year.”
Jaishankar’s visit to Beijing comes at times of heightened tensions between Pakistan and India following the scrapping of Article 370 from the Indian constitution – that offered a special status for Jammu and Kashmir, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government on last Monday and bifurcation of J&K into two Union Territories – J&K under Indian rule and Ladakh with no.
Ahead of EAM’s visit, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had paid an official visit to Beijing in order to raise the Kashmir issue with his Chinese counterparts and seek support to move to the United Nations (UN) against India’s decision to scrapping Article 370.