China’s ambassador to India Sun Weidong named as new foreign vice-minister

Sun’s time in New Delhi coincided with a worsening relations following a deadly clash along the two countries’ disputed border in the Himalayas

His promotion comes after the first public exchange between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi since a deadly clash between troops from the two countries in 2020

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Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:00pm, 16 Nov 2022Updated: 7:52pm, 16 Nov 2022

China’s former ambassador to India Sun Weidong, whose three-year spell in New Delhi coincided with a sharp deterioration in relations as a result of a deadly border stand-off, has been promoted to foreign vice-minister.

Sun is the third Chinese ambassador to India in a row to be promoted to a vice-ministerial role, underlining the importance Beijing attaches to its increasingly fraught relationship with New Delhi.

The appointment was announced on Tuesday, the same day that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted each other in public for the first time since a deadly clash along the disputed Himalayan border in June 2020.

At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the deadliest confrontation between the two sides for five decades.

The two sides are still locked in a military stand-off along the frontier, which looks likely to enter its third winter despite 16 rounds of talks between the two countries’ armed forces and numerous high-level diplomatic negotiations.

Xi and Modi, who still boasted of their “heart-to-heart” friendship when Sun arrived in New Delhi as Beijing’s envoy in July 2019, had not spoken since the Galwan clash until Tuesday’s meeting at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.