Post-Doklam, first Chinese military delegation to visit India

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ China has announced the visit of its military delegation to India, the first after the Doklam standoff, as a major follow up to the informal summit in April between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping. India and China in contact with each other about the visit of Chinese military delegation from Western Theatre Command, China’s Defence Spokesman Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang said in Bejing.

The Western Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) guards the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control with India. Currently, the two sides are in consultation with each other on the upcoming visit to India by the border defence delegation from the Western Theatre Command of the PLA, Ren was quoted as saying in the transcript of the media briefing posted on the Chinese defence ministry website on Friday.

“These border-related exchanges between the two sides at different levels will help to strengthen the management and control of border areas. They will also help to build trust between the field troops of the two sides and translate the consensus reached by the two heads of state into real actions,” he said.

“The two sides are also in contact with each other regarding other cooperation programmes. We will release relevant information in due course,” he said in response to a question about cooperation in the fields of defence and security following the Modi-Xi summit meeting at Wuhan on April 28-29. The two sides had reached an important consensus on practical cooperation and proper management of differences.