India and China have agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries after nearly five years, the latest thaw between the two Asian giants that until recently were on war-footing over a deadly border dispute.
The rapprochement also included agreements on improving access to journalists from both sides and facilitating pilgrimages to a Hindu shrine in Tibet. They were announced by both sides on Monday, after India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, visited Beijing.
The two nations have made substantial progress in recent months to restore some normalcy in ties. Their relationship had plunged to its worst in decades following an incursion by Chinese soldiers into the Indian side of a disputed border in 2020. The skirmishes left soldiers dead on both sides.
In October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India met with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of a summit in Russia. It was the first time the two leaders had sat down for proper talks in five years. That conversation was made possible by more than two dozen rounds of negotiations between military leaders and diplomats over disengaging their forces along the border high in the Himalayas.
Mr. Misri’s trip to Beijing was to follow up over a series of “people-centric steps to stabilize and rebuild ties,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement after the visit.
The ministry added that officials from the two sides would meet to discuss the technical details of resuming flights, which have remained suspended since the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. Flights to Hong Kong resumed after the pandemic lockdowns eased, but those to mainland China did not because of the tension between the two countries.
In his meeting with Mr. Misri, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, called on both sides to “seize the opportunity, meet each other halfway” in the hopes of ending “mutual suspicion, mutual alienation and mutual attrition,” according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
Berry Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
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