China on Friday announced sanctions on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family members for her visit to Taiwan this week, disregarding the strident warnings from Beijing, asserting that it violated China's sovereignty and the "One China policy".
China on Monday criticised Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, stating that it violated Chinese sovereignty over the area, a claim outrightly dismissed by India.
The remarks by the Chinese foreign ministry came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured India that the US stands firmly with it to confront threats to its sovereignty.
"China and the Afghan Taliban have unimpeded and effective communication and consultation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing in Beijing.
Speculation about the missing Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu may have been removed and detained became rife after he was conspicuously absent at the meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing on Friday.
While the US omitted China and Russia from the list of invitees, Beijing was furious over the invitation to the self-governing island Taiwan, which China said is a blatant violation of the 'One China' policy that considers Taipei as the integral part of the Chinese mainland.
China is a permanent member of the UNSC while India began its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member on January 1.
The US move came after the Justice Department said that hackers working with the Chinese government targeted firms developing vaccines for the coronavirus and stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies across the world.
Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing in Beijing that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.
'We hope this round of meeting, on the basis of previous meetings, can move forward, further enlarge consensus, narrow differences and work for a solution that is acceptable to both parties,' the spokesperson said in updated comments posted on the ministry's website.
India has told China that disengagement at all friction points is necessary to contemplate de-escalation of troops in eastern Ladakh even as the foreign ministers of the two countries agreed to establish a hotline for "timely" communication and exchange of views.
China delivered their best performance at a Summer Olympics since the 2008 Games on home soil
The Chinese embassy, in a letter to some of the members of the All-Party Indian Parliamentary Forum for Tibet, expressed concern over their attendance at the event and asked them to refrain from providing support to Tibetan forces.
Without mentioning the boundary dispute, the spokesperson said that China-India relations have been stable on the whole and "our two sides have maintained dialogue and communication at various levels".
India has lodged a "solemn protest" with China over the establishment of two new counties in the Hotan prefecture, as parts of these regions fall within India's union territory of Ladakh. The Indian government asserted that the creation of these counties will not impact its sovereignty over the area and does not lend legitimacy to China's "illegal and forcible" occupation.
The MEA said that the Chinese side has conveyed to India on several occasions that it was only undertaking run-of-the-river hydropower projects, which do not involve diversion of the waters of the Brahmaputra.
'Don't play the American game... India is too big for a US game.'
China on Monday said cooperation between countries should not undermine regional peace and stability and target any third party, as it reacted to a host of defence and commercial pacts recently signed between India and the US including joint production of jet engines in India to power military aircraft and a deal on armed drones.
Videos circulating in China's social media showed clinics in Beijing and some other cities flooded with patients with queues extending onto footpaths with people patiently waiting for their turn in the cold winter.
Wang began a two-day trip to Pakistan on Tuesday primarily to attend a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a special guest.
There are challenges galore before him, and it is not going to be easy. In the next four years, he has to conjure a system that changes the optics about him and the BJP both nationally and internationally so that he can ride back on his own, claim the top slot, and not have to lean on a coalition, asserts Ramesh Menon as Modi 3.0 completes a year in power.
In a statement, the Indian Army said the face-off was resolved by local commanders as per established protocols. The incident at Naku La became public on Monday hours after senior commanders of both the armies concluded a nearly 16-hour-long meeting in an attempt to defuse tension in eastern Ladakh.
India has not yet received any confirmation on Chinese President Xi Jinping's in-person participation at the upcoming G20 summit, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday amid reports that he is likely skip the conclave.
China on Friday said it will not attend the planned G20 tourism working group meeting in Jammu and Kashmir next week, asserting that it is "firmly opposed" to holding such meetings in the "disputed territory".
From India's neighbourhood and extended neighbourhood, presidents of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Iran, Seychelles and prime ministers of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Mauritius have sent congratulatory greetings to Modi.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar has told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that the two sides should work for an early resolution of the remaining issues along the LAC in eastern Ladakh to restore peace and tranquility in the border areas as this has been an essential basis for progress in Sino-India ties.
Asked about the continued tensions along the border and whether the PLA troops action was anyway related to the disagreements with the Indian government's plan to lure business out of China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said both the countries were in diplomatic contact over the face-off between their troops.
Condolences have poured in from across the globe, including from the United States, Canada and Sri Lanka following the demise of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lavrov will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Friday.
Riled by calls from United Nations Human Rights body and some Western countries to address the recurring self immolations in Tibet protesting Chinese rule, Beijing on Monday slammed them saying foreign nations should stop interfering in its "domestic affairs".
Two days ago, the Chinese foreign ministry following a meeting between NSA Ajit Doval and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Johannesburg claimed that Xi and Modi had reached an 'important consensus' on stabilising bilateral ties at the interaction on the margins of the G20 Summit last November.
However, that could only be for sectors where 100 per cent FDI is allowed under the automatic route and pose no risk to national security.
Donald Trump is catering to the basest fears and prejudice of unenlightened Americans -- yes, there are those too, in sizeable enough numbers to elect one of their own as president. That would most certainly not Make America Great Again, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Qin, who recently succeeded Wang Yi, had a phone call at the request of Bilawal on January 9, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement in Beijing said on Tuesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be on a two-day official visit to India from Thursday, his first trip to the country since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last month.
China during the weekend ordered the US to close its consulate in Chengdu within 72 hours in retaliation to the US demand for China to shut down its consulate in Houston.
At a media briefing, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India monitors such developments.
A sense of disquiet prevailed in Beijing as officials announced the capital's first death from the deadly virus, a grim reminder that the epidemic has begun to take toll outside Hubei province.
China opposed to "double standards" on counter-terrorism operations.
