India's Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar will be in the capital city of Beijing on Feb 22 to initiate India - China's first strategic dialogue, a newly upgraded diplomatic mechanism put in place last year for greater engagement between the two Asian giants.

During the strategic dialogue host of important issues are set to be discussed, but Masood Azhar UN ban and NSG issues - the two contagious issues - are most likely to dominate the proceedings. According to reports in India media, Jaishankar will most certainly take up these two sensitive issues during his meeting with China's Executive Vice Foreign Minister, Zhang Yesui, on Wednesday.   

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This will be India's latest diplomatic effort to convince China on Azhar and NSG issues, on which Beijing has stubbornly withheld its ground that has left New Delhi completely frustrated. However, realistically there is little chance that China will smoothen its stance on both the issues this time around. Beijing gave an indication about this at foreign minister's news briefing last week.

China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Geng Shuang, said that Beijing wants solid evidence on Masood Azhar issue to back India's efforts to get a UN ban on the controversial Pakistani leader. On NSG issue, Geng reiterated Chinese government's hesitation in allowing Non-NTP member like India to join the elite nuclear club.

Nonetheless, the foreign ministry spokesperson sounded upbeat about the upcoming strategic dialogue. "The strategic dialogue is an important communication mechanism between India and China. China hopes this will give a further boost to bilateral political mutual trust, strategic consensus, and the strategic cooperative partnership," he said.   

This week's strategic dialogue would be the first high-level contact between the two Asian giants this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jingping met on several occasions last year on the sidelines of international summits, including the G20 summit and BRIC Summit.               

TagsIndia, china, India and China, NSG and Masood Azhar Issues, India and China NSG Issue