Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday told Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri that India and China should seize the opportunity to meet each other halfway, explore more substantive measures, and commit themselves to mutual understanding, mutual support and mutual achievement, rather than mutual suspicion, alienation and mutual depletion.

An improvement in India-China relations is fully in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries and the two people and conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the countries of the Global South, he said during the meeting in Beijing.

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Mr Misri, who is a former Indian Ambassador to China, is on a two-day visit to Beijing to attend a meeting of the Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism between India and China in Beijing. Issues to be discussed by him include the resumption of direct flights between India and China, issuance of visas, particularly for businesspersons and journalists, and ironing out trade issues, according to Indian news outlets.

Mr Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that since the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year in Kazan, the two sides have earnestly implemented the important consensus reached by the two leaders, engaged in positive interactions at all levels and accelerated the process of improving China-India relations.

The state-run Chinese media quoted Mr Misri as saying that India and China have carried out a series of beneficial dialogues and communications in accordance with the consensus reached at the Kazan meeting between the leaders of the two countries, appropriately managing and resolving their differences and promoting the relaunch of practical cooperation in various fields.

He is also learnt to have stated that India is ready to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with China and will fully support China’s chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in all its endeavours.

Before Misri’s China visit, Mr Wang had met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Beijing in December 2024. Mr Wang and Mr Doval are the Special Representatives of the two countries on the boundary dispute.

On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary met Mr Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and the two sides exchanged views on jointly implementing the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, strengthening exchanges and dialogues, and promoting the improvement and healthy and stable development of China-India relations, as well as international and regional issues of common concern.