Doklam standoff is passé, welcome to new India, China ‘bonhomie’ along with Russia

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India for the Russia-India-China Foreign Ministers' trilateral meeting in Delhi next week.

New Delhi, Dec 6: Have India and China finally forgotten the acrimonious period of the Doklam standoff earlier this year? For 73 days, from June 16 to August 28, the two neighbouring countries were at loggerheads with each other in the Doklam region of Bhutan.

Fortunately, sanity prevailed and India and China decided to end the military row with the help of diplomacy to avoid a full-blown war that could have proved detrimental to the whole world.

The end of Doklam standoff does not mean that everything is hunky-dory between the two countries, as border-related issues still remain unresolved between India and China.

Amid all this, a significant diplomatic development has taken place between the two nations as they are set to hold a trilateral meeting along with Russia. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India for the Russia-India-China Foreign Ministers' trilateral meeting in Delhi next week.

The External Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that Wang, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would attend the meeting on December 11 to be hosted by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the national capital.

The meeting is expected to review global and regional issues of mutual interests as well as discuss trilateral exchanges and activities.

The Indian and Chinese troops were in a face-to-face situation near the Sikkim sector of the international border after the Chinese People's Liberation Army tried to build a road in Doklam in mid-June.

While India and Bhutan said that it violated the status quo along the India-Bhutan-China international trijunction, Beijing claimed that it was China's territory.

Both New Delhi and Beijing eventually agreed to pull back their troops towards the end of August ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China for the G20 Summit.

A retired diplomat welcoming the upcoming trilateral meeting stated that both India and China can't afford to fight against each other for long.

"Both are dependent on each other and even a war-like situation like that of Doklam standoff harms both the countries badly. Only continuous talks between India and China can keep the skirmishes between the two countries at bay," he added.

OneIndia News