Indian Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh with military delegation visits Xinjiang, China

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A high level military delegation led by Lt. General Ranbir Singh, Commander of Indian Army’s Northern Command yesterday visited Xinjiang, the politically important north-west province of China bordering Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

He held talks with senior Chinese Military leaders in province’s capital Urumqi on issue of mutual interest.

Today, he will visit a regiment of Xinjiang Military Command. As per the tweets of Indian Army’s Northern Command, the delegation has also met the Commander of Western Theatre Command, General Zhao Zongqi at Chengdu on Wednesday and discussed issues of joint training and furthering peace at borders.

Western Theatre Command covers entire India-China border and is the most important from the view point of border dispute resolution and regional security environment.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Singh called on General Han Weiguo, Chief of People’s Liberation Army of China in Beijing where both exchanged views on measures to further enhance peace & tranquility along the borders. Visit will be concluded tomorrow after a visit to Shanghai.

AIR Beijing correspondent reports that the visit is part of agreed Defence engagements between both sides agreed during Annual Defence dialogues. The visit is aimed at enhancing confidence building measures between armies of both sides, mainly Northern Command in India and Western Theatre Command in China to understand each other’s sensitivities on the ground and avoid misunderstandings along border.

In past two years, there has been increased frequency of high level visits between armies of both the countries to enhance military coordination, trust and understanding. This visit comes just after the joint military exercise, ‘Hand in Hand 2019’ held between the two armies in Meghalaya in December 2019.

In line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping after two informal summits, high level exchanges between the defence forces of both the countries are considered vital to enhance the mutual trust and cooperation.

Few days ago, China had expressed its willingness to work with the Indian side to follow the guidance of Prime Minister Modi and President Xi for development of military-to-military relationship along the right track and make more contributions to the growth of the bilateral relations.