External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is presently in Bali, Indonesia, met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Thursday.
In an hour-long meeting, the two leaders spoke on “specific outstanding issues” between both countries including the present border situation.
Sharing a picture with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, the EAM further noted that they also spoke about other issues including students and flights as many Indian students continue to wait to receive Chinese visas.
“Shared perspectives on the international situation and its impact on the G20 deliberations”, he added.
“Began my day in Bali by meeting FM Wang Yi of China. The discussion lasted one hour. Focused on specific outstanding issues in our bilateral relationship pertaining to the border situation. Also spoke about other matters including students and flights”, Dr S Jaishankar tweeted.
Notably, the External Affairs Minister is on a visit to Indonesia to take part in the two-day meeting of Foreign Ministers of G20 countries that begins today.
Jaishankar will represent India at the meeting and will further also hold several important bilateral meetings with his counterparts from other G20 states and invited countries.
With the theme of “Building a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous world together,” this year’s meet aims to serve as a strategic forum to discuss global recovery efforts between member states. While the meeting will have two sessions, the first session will be on strengthening multilateralism and will discuss joint steps to strengthen global collaboration and build mutual trust among countries,
On the other hand, the second session on Food and Energy Security will discuss strategic steps to overcome the food crisis, fertilizers shortage, and rising global commodity prices.
The meeting on Thursday is the fourth between Jaishankar and Wang since the instability along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). However, so far no resolution has been drawn out over the matter. Earlier, in September 2020, both the leaders met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Moscow and agreed that the situation is not in the interests of both countries and further agreed on the disengagement of troops from both sides.
Following that, while both India and China have held multiple diplomatic as well as military talks, both sides have so far only agreed to pull back frontline troops. A decision regarding the friction points is yet to be taken.
