India has two major diplomatic engagements next week as it is set to host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi while External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar heads to Moscow, amid a strain in New Delhi's ties with the Trump administration over its procurement of Russian crude oil.
Wang is scheduled to visit India on August 18 to hold border talks with NSA Ajit Doval, days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's planned trip to China to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), authoritative sources said.
Jaishankar is travelling to Moscow on August 20 on a two-day visit to hold crucial talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, and the focus of the trip is likely to be on preparing grounds for President Vladimir Putin's much awaited trip to India later this year.
The external affairs minister's trip to Russia comes days after Doval travelled to Moscow and met the President and several top-ranking officials.
India's continued procurement of crude oil from Russia is likely to figure in Jaishankar's meetings with Russian leaders.
US President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order slapping an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods as a penalty for New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil. The additional duties raised the overall tariff on India to 50 per cent.
The Chinese foreign minister is visiting India primarily to hold the next round of Special Representatives (SR) dialogue on the boundary question, authoritative sources said.
Wang and Doval are the designated special representatives for the boundary talks.
The NSA travelled to China in December last and held the SR talks with Wang, weeks after Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to revive various dialogue mechanisms between the two sides at a meeting in the Russian city of Kazan.
It is learnt that Wang will also hold a separate meeting with Jaishankar.
Modi is expected to travel to China later this month to attend the SCO summit.
As per the plan, Modi will embark on a visit to Japan around August 29 and after concluding the trip, he will travel to the northern Chinese city of Tianjin for the summit to be held on August 31 and September 1.
Modi's visit to China is being planned amid efforts by the two sides to repair their bilateral ties which came under severe strain following the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in June 2020.
The military standoff in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020 and the clashes at the Galwan Valley in June that year resulted in a severe strain in ties.
The face-off effectively ended following completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21 last year.
The decision to revive various dialogue mechanisms was taken at a meeting between Modi and Xi in Kazan on October 23, 2024.
The Modi-Xi meeting came two days after India and China firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok.
The two sides also initiated a number of initiatives to rebuild the ties that included resumption of Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and New Delhi restarting issuance of tourist visas to Chinese nationals.
Both sides are also discussing modalities to resume direct flight services between the two countries.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Jaishankar visited China in the last two months to attend SCO meetings.
China is the current chair of the SCO.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
