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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has proposed ‘China-India Plus cooperation in South Asia to forge a cooperation-based model with healthy interaction, so as to achieve mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation at a higher level and in a wider range’. 

He made such proposal in the meeting with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. According to China’s official media, the top Chinese diplomat stressed that the two countries should take part in the multilateral process with a cooperative posture. Since 2017, China is proposing two-plus one cooperation in South Asian countries including in Nepal. China is proposing to initiate the implementation of such proposal from Nepal.  India, however, has not accepted it. 

He said that when China and India speak with one voice, the whole world will listen, and if the two countries join hands, the whole world will pay attention.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will virtually address the 5th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit to be held on March 30.

The Nepali delegation led by the Prime Minister will include Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka, Personal Secretary to the Prime Minister Bhan Bahadur Deuba, Chief Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi, Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal and senior officials from the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, read a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka will participate in the 18th BIMSTEC ministerial meeting in-person to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka on March 29. On the sidelines, he will also hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from BIMSTEC member states. 

He will leave for Colombo March 28 and will return to Kathmandu on March 31, the Ministry said.

Similarly, the Nepali delegation led Ghanshyam Bhandari, Joint Secretary and Head of Regional Organization Division at the Ministry, will participate in the 22nd BIMSTEC senior officials' meeting physically on March 28.

The Fifth BIMSTEC Summit and its preceding meetings are being held in and from Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 28 – 30 in a hybrid mode, the statement read.

The theme of this year's Summit is ‘BIMSTEC – Towards a Resilient Region, Prosperous Economies, Healthy Peoples’.

Chinese State Councilor and Minister for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi arrived in Kathmandu on a three-day official visit to Nepal on Friday.

Leading a 25-member delegation, he landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu at around 5 pm today.

Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal welcomed him at the airport.

During his visit to Nepal, Minister Wang is scheduled to pay courtesy calls on President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Wang, who arrived in Nepal at the invitation of his Nepali counterpart Narayan Khadka, will also hold separate meetings with former Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and former Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

He is also scheduled to hold bilateral talks with his Nepali counterpart Khadka, leading their respective delegations on March 26.

Photos: Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet his Indian counterpart in New Delhi on Friday, India’s foreign ministry said, after he arrived in the capital on the first visit by a top Chinese official since border clashes in 2020, Reuters reported.

Wang will meet Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at 11 a.m. (0530 GMT), a ministry spokesperson told Reuters, without giving details. Media said he had already met India’s powerful national security adviser, Ajit Doval.

The top Chinese diplomat visited Pakistan and Afghanistan this week and is set to fly to Nepal later in the day on a whirlwind tour of South Asia where China is trying to deepen its influence.

Relations between old rivals India and China took a serious turn for the worse with a June 2020 clash in the Ladakh region on their Himalayan border in which at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, according to Reuters.

Jaishankar noted in a speech on Thursday the deterioration in ties and stressed the importance of the coordination of foreign and defence policies, which he said were “joined at the hip”.

“Few would have anticipated … the turn that India’s relations with China have taken in the last two years,” he said.

“Any prudent policy therefore backs its posture with capabilities and deterrence. A big responsibility of Indian diplomacy, therefore, is to create the widest set of options for such contingencies.”

Neither China nor India announced Wang’s visit before he landed in New Delhi late on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Footage from Reuters partner ANI indicated he arrived through the commercial airport rather than a defence facility nearby where most foreign dignitaries land.

Wang drew a rebuke from the Indian government ahead of his trip for remarks in Pakistan this week on the disputed Kashmir region. India and Pakistan rule Muslim-majority Kashmir in part but claim in full, and China has generally backed close ally Pakistan.

The two sides are expected to discuss their border tension as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Both consider Russia a friend and both have rejected Western calls for condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia calls it action a “special military operation”.

Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are deployed on their high-altitude border. Senior military officers have held more than a dozen rounds of talks to defuse the standoff but progress has been limited, according to Reuters.