It was a diplomatically fruitful week for India. New Delhi reached a deal with Beijing that could pave the way for a thaw in ties between the two Asian giants.
Days after the neighbouring countries reached an agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the first in five years, on the sidelines of the Brics Summit in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan in Russia.
Besides China, Germany also featured in Indian diplomacy this week. New Delhi hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is looking to reduce his country’s reliance on China. Berlin is banking on India to achieve that goal.
Here’s all this and more in this weekly roundup of stories from India.
1. India and China reached a pact on “patrolling arrangements” along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. “We reached an agreement on patrolling and with that the disengagement that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020 and we can say… with that the disengagement process with China has been completed,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
The agreement, a result of several rounds of military and diplomatic talks, comes four years after the 2020 Galwan Valley clash that deteriorated India and China’s relations. New Delhi maintained that ties with Beijing cannot return to normal until disengagement and de-escalation are complete.
Now that a deal has been agreed upon, what changes will happen and what will stay the same? We explain in this report.
2. The patrolling agreement cleared the path for the much-anticipated bilateral meeting between PM Modi and China’s Xi. The talks took place in Russia where the two leaders had gathered for the Brics Summit.
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