China and India to restart direct flights after more than five years

China and India will restart mutual personnel travel and direct flights after more than five years of suspension, the two countries’ foreign ministers agreed in Beijing on Monday.

Transit between the world’s most populous neighbours has been cut off since 2020, first because of the Covid-19 pandemic and then a deadly border clash in the Himalayas.

The announcement came as India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is in Beijing, his first trip to China since 2020.

The visit came as bilateral ties made some recoveries from the border incidents but new tensions emerged over succession plans for the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since 1959.

During discussions with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Jaishankar supported continued efforts towards de-escalation and border management.

India, he said, valued China’s recent reopening of access to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar in Tibet to Indian pilgrims for their Kailash Mansarovar Yatra trek; it had been suspended for five years over border tensions and the pandemic.

The resumption, Jaishankar said according to a readout by his ministry, was “widely appreciated in India.