NSA Doval holds meeting with top Chinese official

BEIJING: National security adviser AK Doval met one of China’s top diplomats, Yang Jiechi, on Friday in Shanghai as the two countries stepped up efforts to smoothen ties ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June expected to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The two top officials are learnt to have held wide-ranging discussions on the current state of bilateral ties as the two countries attempt to shake off the unease and suspicion generated from the military standoff at Doklam near the Sikkim border last year.

The two top officials shared their thoughts on the current global and regional hotspots and took stock of the state of affairs in Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Doval will be back in Beijing for the SCO summit of national security advisers in May.

Yang is currently the director of the central foreign affairs commission (CFAC), a Communist Party of China (CPC) group headed party general secretary, Xi Jinping, that has oversight over the country’s external relations. He is also a member of the party’s powerful politburo.

Indian diplomats didn’t share details about the meeting, which was held in Shanghai and not in the capital Beijing where bilateral meetings are usually held. More bilateral visits are slated for this month with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman expected to visit Beijing.

Swaraj is expected to visit China for the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meet on April 24 and hold talks with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.

Defence minister Sitharaman will also visit China the same time for a bilateral meet as well as the SCO defence ministers’ meet.

Last December, then state councillor Yang had led a team of diplomats to New Delhi for the 20th round of border talks under the Special Representative (SR) mechanism. Yang was then the SR for China while Doval continues to be so for India.