New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will pay a three-day visit to China from Aug 11, as both sides prepare for the second informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in India in October.
During his visit Jaishankar, who was Indian envoy to Beijing from 2009 to 2013, will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest. The meeting between the two comes days after they held a bilateral meeting in Bangkok last week on the sidelines of the ASEAN-related multilaterals.
This will be Jaishankar's first visit to China after he took over as External Affairs Minister.
The two sides will discuss the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including upcoming high-level visits later this year, as well as regional and global issues of mutual interest, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
Jaishankar will co-chair the second meeting of the India-China High-Level Mechanism (HLM) on cultural and people-to-people exchanges on August 12 with Wang.
The decision to establish the HLM was taken during the first informal summit between Modi and Xi in Wuhan in April 2018.
The inaugural HLM meeting was held on December 21 last year.
"The second HLM meeting will provide an opportunity to follow up on the outcomes of the 1st HLM meeting and discuss new initiatives for enhancing people-to-people exchanges between our two countries," the statement said.
It said the HLM reflects the desire on both sides to build greater synergies in the people-to-people ties between the two countries through enhanced exchanges in areas such as tourism, art, films, media, culture and sports.