Chinese President Xi Jinping has appointed senior diplomat Xu Feihong as the new Ambassador to India after an unusually long delay of 18 months amid frozen relations between the two countries over the eastern Ladakh military standoff.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has appointed senior diplomat Xu Feihong as the new Ambassador to India after an unusually long delay of 18 months amid frozen relations between the two countries over the eastern Ladakh military standoff.

While there is no official announcement in Beijing yet, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed to PTI that Mr. Xu, former Ambassador to Afghanistan and Romania, has been appointed as China’s new envoy in India.

Mr. Xu, 60, is expected to travel to New Delhi soon to take over his new posting.

He will succeed veteran Chinese diplomat Sun Weidong who completed his tenure in India in October 2022.

Mr. Sun, who was China’s envoy to Pakistan before his India stint, is currently the Vice Foreign Minister overseeing China’s South Asia policy.

Mr. Xu’s appointment which coincides with the ongoing Lok Sabha elections comes amid protracted military and diplomatic negotiations between Beijing and New Delhi to resolve the prolonged military standoff.

Relations between the two countries were frozen except for trade ever since the eastern Ladakh border standoff erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Tso (lake) area. The eastern Ladakh standoff has resulted in a freeze of bilateral ties.

The two sides have so far held 21 rounds of corps commanders-level talks to resolve the standoff.

According to the Chinese military, the two sides so far agreed to disengage from four points, namely the Galwan Valley, the Pangong Lake, Hot Springs, and Jianan Daban (Gogra).

India is pressing the People’s Liberation Army to disengage from the Depsang and Demchok areas, maintaining that there cannot be restoration of normalcy in its relations with China as long as the state of the borders remains abnormal.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian speaks during a press conference in Beijing.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

China on March 25 continued to claim that Arunachal Pradesh is part of its territory, notwithstanding India dismissing Beijing’s claim as “absurd” and “ludicrous”.

On March 25, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian reiterated China’s claim reacting to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s assertions on Saturday, dismissing China’s repeated claims on Arunachal Pradesh as “ludicrous” and that the frontier state was a “natural part of India”.

“This is not a new issue. I mean China has laid claim, it has expanded its claim. The claims are ludicrous to begin with and remain ludicrous today,” Mr. Jaishankar said in response to a question on the Arunachal issue after delivering a lecture at the prestigious Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) of the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“So, I think we’ve been very clear, very consistent on this. And I think you know that is something which will be part of the boundary discussions which are taking place,” he said. Mr. Lin, replying to a question from the official media seeking his reactions to Jaishankar’s comments, said the border between India and China has never been settled.

Zangnan, China’s official name for Arunachal Pradesh, was always part of China before it was “illegally occupied” by India, Lin claimed.

China has all along had an effective administration over the region, he said.

Claiming that it is an “indisputable fact”, he said India has established the “so-called Arunachal Pradesh” in 1987 on the illegally occupied territory.

“We have issued strong statements against their actions and stressed their action is ineffective and this position of China has not been changed”, Mr. Lin said.

This is the fourth time this month China spoke about its claim over Arunachal Pradesh.

Beijing said it has lodged a diplomatic protest with India over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh on March 9 reiterating its claim over the area.

China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, routinely objects to the Indian leaders’ visits to the state to highlight its claims. Beijing has also named the area as Zangnan.

China’s Defence Minister has also claimed that Arunachal Pradesh was part of Chinese territory, a claim dismissed by the Ministry of External Affairs last week.