BEIJING, Aug 11 - External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar arrived in Beijing on Sunday on a key three-day visit to hold talks with the Chinese leadership on a host of issues including finalisation of arrangements for President Xi Jinping's visit to India later this year for the second informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The visit of Jaishankar, the first Indian minister to tour China after the Modi government began its second term, is also taking place in the aftermath of India's decision to revoke special status to Jammu and Kashmir and its division into two Union Territories -Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. His visit was finalised much before India's move to revoke Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Jaishankar, who was the first career diplomat to become the External Affairs Minister, served as India's Ambassador to China from 2009 to 2013, the longest tenure by an Indian envoy.
His official engagements will begin on Monday with a call on Chinese leadership. It has not been officially announced yet about whom he would be meeting.
It will be followed by bilateral meeting with Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Later the two ministers will also co-chair the second meeting of the High-Level Mechanism on Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges. The first was meeting held in New Delhi last year.
They are also scheduled to address the media at the closing ceremony of the 4th India-China High Level Media Forum being organised by China Public Diplomacy Association and attend a cultural gala being held by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Four Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) were expected to be signed during Jaishankar's visit.
Officials say his talks with Wang would cover wide ranging issues including finalisation of arrangements for the President's visit to India later this year for the second informal summit, which was expected to set the tone for the bilateral ties between the two countries for the next five years.
Modi and Xi set the bilateral relations back on track with their first-ever informal summit last year at Wuhan after a 73-day standoff at Doklam between the two militaries in 2017. � PTI
