India and China are expected to devise ‘fool-proof’ ways to prevent another Doklamlike situation on their common border when Chinese defence minister Gen Wei Fenghe arrives here on 21 August on a four-day visit.
Diplomatic sources said the Chinese minister was coming to India with high expectations. The ground work for his trip had been laid by two successful visits by top Chinese military commanders during the last month.
Sources said the two countries were committed to reset bilateral ties in the wake of summit-level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinee President Xi Jinping.
The two leaders have held three meetings over the past four months and instructed their officials to ensure that peace and tranquility prevails on the India-China border. “There is a clear-cut instruction from the top that we should not allow our differences to become disputes… we should look for convergences and not divergences,’’ sources added.
Both sides are attaching a lot of importance to the Chinese defence minister’s visit at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman. Sources said the proposal for the Chinese minister was mooted by PM Modi at Wuhan during his informal summit with the Chinese leader in April.
He had also suggested that Chinese Minister for Public Security too must visit India. The Chinese President promptly accepted both the proposals. As a consequence, Chinese minister ofpublic security Zhao Kezhi will visit India towards the end of October at the invitation of home minister Rajnath Singh.
National security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval is scheduled to visit China for the next round of boundary talks between Special Representatives of the two countries later during the year.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will also hold a dialogue in New Delhi on enhancing people-to-people contact between their two nations.
Sources said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be meeting again in November on the margins of the G-20 Summit in Argentina.