Overview

• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met President Xi Jinping in Beijing and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Tianjin, marking India’s highest-level visit since the 2020 Galwan Valley clash.
• India and China agreed to resume structured de-escalation talks along the Line of Actual Control and to lift restrictive trade measures that have hindered bilateral commerce.
• At the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, Jaishankar pressed for stronger counterterrorism language by citing the Pahalgam attack and UN Security Council condemnation, even as China’s official readout omitted those references.
• New Delhi urged accelerated development of the International North-South Transport Corridor to diversify transit routes and strengthen intra-regional trade among SCO members.
• Attention now turns to whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the SCO leaders’ summit in Tianjin later this year, which would be his first China visit since 2019.