Chinese defence minister to visit India to address post-Doklam military ties

Beijing, July 27: Chinese State Councillor and Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe is set to visit India this year with the aim of addressing the military relations between the two countries after last year's Doklam standoff.

On Thursday, July 26, China's defence ministry spokesperson Ren Guoqiang said in a routine press conference that the defence officials of the two countries were in the middle of communication over the visit, adding that related information will be publicised in the right time.

Ren said the Chinese defence minister's visit will be in response to the invitation of Nirmala Sitharaman, his Indian counterpart.

General Wei became the Chinese defence minister in March and this will be his fourth foreign visit since then after Russia, Belarus and Cambodia, China's Global Times reported.

According to Chinese experts, the Chinese defence minister's visit gives an indication that the relations between the two neighbours' militaries have recovered.

"China attaches great importance to relations between the two armies," Qian Feng, a research fellow at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University, Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday (July 26).

The visit might have a bearing of the informal meeting that took place between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, China, in April, to normalise the relations between the two neighbours that were tense after the Doklam standoff.