Jaishankar heads to China for first visit since Galwan clash, likely to meet counterpart Wang Yi
The visit comes at a time when both countries are trying to ease tensions and improve ties that plummeted following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020.
Jaishankar, who is on a two-nation tour -- Singapore and China is scheduled to arrive in Beijing this evening after wrapping up the Singapore leg of his visit.
The External Affairs Minister is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, for a bilateral meeting on Monday.
Jaishankar and Wang last met in February on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Johannesburg, where both sides echoed calls for mutual trust and support.
Live Events
Jaishankar will also attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(SCO) Foreign Ministers' in Tianjin on July 15.
The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that "EAM will visit the People's Republic of China to participate in the
SCO Council of Foreign Ministers
' Meeting (CFM) being held in Tianjin. EAM will also hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the CFM."
This is Jaishankar's first visit to China since relations soured following the deadly military clash in Galwan in 2020.
Jaishankar's visit follows visits by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who had travelled to China in June for the SCO meetings.
Wang Yi is also expected to visit India next month to meet NSA Ajit Doval -- part of a planned round of dialogue under the Special Representatives (SR) mechanism aimed at resolving the decades-old boundary dispute.
Even as diplomatic talks continue, China's recent trade actions have raised eyebrows in New Delhi. In recent weeks, China has either delayed or stopped key exports to India, including rare earth magnets, fertilisers, and tunnel boring machines meant for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.
Adding fuel to the fire, China's covert and overt support to Pakistan, particularly during the clashes in May this year, remains a sticking point. These thorny issues threaten to overshadow any constructive dialogue at the SCO meeting.
The SCO meeting may also come with its own set of challenges. Last month, India refused to sign a joint statement at the SCO defence ministers' meeting after it did not include any mention of the terror attack in Pahalgam, which killed 26 people. India had pushed for strong references to terrorism, but one country -- believed to be Pakistan -- disagreed.
A similar deadlock may play out again during the foreign ministers' meeting, making Jaishankar's task tougher.
SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran.
The 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the SCO will be held in Tianjin later this year. India had chaired the SCO Presidency in 2023 while Pakistan hosted the SCO Leaders' Summit in 2024.
The 2020 Galwan Valley standoff between India and China was the worst border clash in over 40 years, resulting in the death of soldiers on both sides.
The incident sharply escalated tensions and brought bilateral ties to a historic low.
The decision to revive the SR dialogue and other dormant channels was reportedly taken during a brief exchange between PM Modi and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in Kazan, Russia, in October last year.
There have been a few glimmers of positive movement, most notably the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra after nearly five years.
It remains unclear whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China to attend the grouping's annual summit.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Deccan Herald
40 minutes ago
- Deccan Herald
Moonshot AI goes open-source to regain market position
Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI released a new open-source AI model on Friday, joining a wave of similar releases from local rivals, as it seeks to reclaim its position in the competitive domestic market. The model, called Kimi K2, features enhanced coding capabilities and excels at general agent tasks and tool integration, allowing it to break down complex tasks more effectively, the company said in a statement. Moonshot claimed the model outperforms mainstream open-source models in some areas, including DeepSeek's V3, and rival capabilities of leading U.S. models such as those from Anthropic in certain functions such as coding. The release follows a trend among Chinese companies toward open-sourcing AI models, contrasting with many U.S. tech giants like OpenAI and Google that keep their most advanced AI models proprietary. Some American firms, including Meta Platforms , have also released open-source models. Open-sourcing allows developers to showcase their technological capabilities and expand developer communities as well as their global influence, a strategy likely to help China counter U.S. efforts to limit Beijing's tech progress.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
40 minutes ago
- Business Standard
SCO summit: EAM Jaishankar flags conflicts, competition, coercion
In a reference to China restricting the supply of critical minerals, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Tuesday expressed India's concerns over 'conflicts, competition and coercion' as well as economic instability, underlining the need to stabilise the global order and address longstanding challenges that 'threaten our collective interests'. Addressing his Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) counterparts in Tianjin, China, Jaishankar urged the grouping to remain true to its founding objective of combating terrorism and extremism, and to take an 'uncompromising' stance on these issues. He also elaborated on India's rationale for Operation Sindoor, defending the country's response to the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, in which 26 people were killed. Earlier in the day, Jaishankar, along with other foreign ministers of SCO member states, called on Chinese President Xi Jinping. Jaishankar called for improved transit facilities and better connectivity among SCO member states. 'Deepening collaboration within the SCO naturally requires more trade, investment, and exchanges. For that to move to the next level, it is imperative that we address some current issues,' he observed. 'One of them is the lack of assured transit within the SCO space. Its absence undermines the seriousness of advocating cooperation in economic areas. Another is the need to ensure the promotion of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC),' he said. The INSTC is a 7,200-kilometre-long multi-modal transport project for moving freight among India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia, and Europe. India has consistently supported the project. Jaishankar's comments on terrorism — made in the presence of his counterparts from Pakistan, China, and other SCO member nations — come amid India's concerns during and after Operation Sindoor over Beijing's assistance to Islamabad. China has also blocked India's efforts at the United Nations Security Council to sanction Pakistan-based terrorists. On June 26, at the SCO defence ministers' meeting in Qingdao, China, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had refused to sign a draft joint communiqué because it omitted the Pahalgam terror attack and did not explicitly address India's concerns over Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism. While Singh had demanded that the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam be mentioned in the communiqué, the Pakistani delegation insisted that the document include a paragraph on militant activities in Balochistan. 'India wanted concerns reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to a particular country. As such, the joint statement was not adopted,' Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said. On Tuesday, alluding to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has faced criticism, Jaishankar said in Tianjin that India will continue to approach new ideas and proposals positively, but such cooperation must be based on 'mutual respect', 'sovereign equality', and in accordance with the 'territorial integrity and sovereignty' of member states. Jaishankar said the Pahalgam attack was 'deliberately conducted' to undermine Jammu & Kashmir's tourism economy and sow religious discord. The SCO foreign ministers' meeting will decide on the agenda for the SCO Summit in Tianjin later this year, which Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is expected to attend. Jaishankar also held separate meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, focusing on bilateral cooperation and the situation in West Asia. Among other topics, Jaishankar and Lavrov discussed the evolving regional security scenario. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit India later this year for the annual India-Russia summit. In his speech at the SCO foreign ministers' meeting, Jaishankar said, 'Economic instability is also visibly on the rise. The challenge before us is to stabilise the global order, derisk various dimensions, and, through it all, address longstanding challenges that threaten our collective interests.' He argued that the SCO's ability to shape world affairs will depend on how well it unites behind a shared agenda. 'That means taking everybody on board,' he said. 'The world is today moving towards greater multi-polarity. This is not just in terms of redistribution of national capacities, but also the emergence of effective groupings like the SCO.' The external affairs minister also urged the grouping to step up development assistance to Afghanistan. The SCO — comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Belarus — is an influential economic and security bloc that has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations. The Congress on Tuesday expressed hope that PM Modi will 'finally agree' to a discussion on China during the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, pointing out that if Parliament could debate the border situation during the 1962 Chinese invasion, then there is no reason it can't do so now. Tagging a media report on Jaishankar meeting Xi Jinping and apprising him of recent developments in India-China ties, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at the EAM, saying he is 'now running a full-blown circus aimed at destroying India's foreign policy'. 'I guess the Chinese foreign minister will come and apprise Modi about recent developments in China-India ties. The EAM is now running a full-blown circus aimed at destroying India's foreign policy,' Gandhi said in a post on X.
Economic Times
41 minutes ago
- Economic Times
US Education Department opens foreign funding probe into University of Michigan
Agencies The University of Michigan is under federal scrutiny after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the United Education Department on Tuesday opened an investigation into the university's foreign funding, citing the pair of cases that were announced days apart in June. It said the 'highly disturbing criminal charges' raise concerns about Michigan's vulnerability to national security threats from China. 'Despite the University of Michigan's history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM's research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage,' said Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel of the department. President Donald Trump has made it a priority to increase transparency around foreign gifts and contracts to U.S. universities, especially those tied to China. Similar investigations have been opened at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, joins efforts from Republicans in Congress who have urged universities to cut research ties with China, saying China exploits the relationships to steal technology. Michigan ended a partnership with a university in Shanghai in January amid pressure from House Republicans who called it a security new investigation demands financial records from Michigan, along with information about research collaborations with institutions outside the U.S. The Education Department accuses Michigan of being 'incomplete, inaccurate and untimely' in its public disclosures around funding from foreign authorities brought charges in June against a Chinese scientist and his girlfriend — who worked at a lab at the University of Michigan — after the FBI said it halted their effort to bring a toxic fungus into the United later, authorities arrested a Chinese scientist who was arriving in the U.S. and has been accused of shipping biological material to a laboratory at the University of June, the university said it condemned any actions that undermine national security and announced a review of protocols related to research a letter to the university, however, the Education Department said some school officials have downplayed the vulnerability of research collaborations with Chinese institutions. It singles out Ann Chih Lin, director of the university's Center for Chinese Studies, who has publicly said the threat of technology theft from China is overstated.'Lin's apparent indifference to the national security concerns of the largest single source of funding for UM's annual research expenditures — the American taxpayer — is particularly unsettling,' Education Department officials law requires universities to report all gifts and contracts from foreign sources totaling $250,000 or more. The law went mostly unenforced until Trump's first term, when the Education Department opened a dozen inquiries into universities accused of underreporting foreign money. The Biden administration closed most of those cases, but the effort has recently been U.S. universities acknowledge a need to improve research security but caution against treating Chinese scholars with hostility and suspicion, saying only small numbers have been involved in year, House Republicans issued a report finding that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding had gone toward research that ultimately boosted Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology and nuclear is the second-largest country of origin for foreign students in the U.S., behind only India. In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States. (Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates) Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Rumblings at the top of Ola Electric The hybrid vs. EV rivalry: Why Maruti and Mahindra pull in different directions. What's best? How Safexpress bootstrapped its way to build India's largest PTL Express business Zee promoters have a new challenge to navigate. And it's not about funding or Sebi probe. Newton vs. industry: Inside new norms that want your car to be more fuel-efficient Stock Radar: UltraTech Cements hit a fresh record high in July; what should investors do – book profits or buy the dip? F&O Radar | Deploy Bear Put Spread in Nifty to gain from index correction Weekly Top Picks: These stocks scored 10 on 10 on Stock Reports Plus
