I would like to welcome Dr. Hu Shisheng, Special Assistant to the President of CICIR and his colleagues to the VIF. We had the opportunity to interact with Dr Fu Mengzi , Vice President CICIR, Dr. Hu Shisheng and other members of the Chinese delegation to the VIF in Apr 2019. We welcome the resumption of dialogues between our two think tanks after a long gap.

The events of 2020 at the LAC were unprecedented. They have cast a long shadow on Sino-Indian relations. Peace and tranquillity on the LAC was disturbed. Status quo was changed. These events are not ordinary. Large number of troops have been deployed from both sides on the border. This is an unusual situation fraught with risk. It will be necessary to restore peace and tranquillity on the LAC to ensure the India-China relations become normal.

The border issues remains the most critical. Despite the fact that the two sides signed an agreement on the political parameters to resolve the boundary issue, there has been little progress. The policy of putting the border issue on the back burners while normalising relations in other fields has its limitations as the Galwan incidents of 2020 brought out starkly. India-China relations require a course correction.

There have been important meetings in the recent past: NSA, Mr Ajit Doval met the Chinese counterpart on the sideline of BRICS NSA meetings in Jul 2023. Earlier, EAM Sh Jaishankar has met Mr Wang Yi in Jakarta.

The global and regional environment has changed significantly in the last few years. Covid 19 was a watershed event, which led to emergence of mutually reinforcing, simultaneous crisis in multiple fields. The world saw disruption in global supply chains, downturn in global and national economies, rise in inflation and deepening of poverty in several countries.

In today’s discussion, we look forward to understanding the Chinese perspective on bilateral, regional and global issues.