Beijing: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval today held a meeting with a top official of China’s ruling CPC Yang Jiechi in Shanghai, the Indian Embassy said. This is the second such meeting between the two officials after the last year’s Dokalam stand-off.

Mr Doval’s meeting with Mr Yang, the Politburo member of the CPC, comes ahead of several key dialogues between the two countries which are trying to reset the ties after the last year’s more than a two month long stand-off at Dokalam.

In a very brief statement, the Indian Embassy said that Mr Doval and Mr Yang, both special representatives of the India-China boundary talks, held talks, but gave no details about the meeting.

Mr Yang is also the Director for Foreign Affairs Commission. Till last month, Yang was the State Councillor of the CPC, a top post in diplomacy.

Wang Yi replaced him as Foreign Minister. Wang would hold the dual posts of State Councillor and Foreign Minister in a huge reshuffle of top officials.

This can be termed as the second meeting between Doval and Yang after the Dokalam stand-off.

Mr Yang had attended the 20^th round of boundary talks by the two countries in the Indian Capital Delhi in December last year during which both sides had decided to reset the ties with more interactions.

Since December, the two sides are trying to clear out all differences on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and China blocking the efforts to designate Jaish e Muhammed chief Masood Azhar as a terrorist by the UN.

The two countries are getting themselves prepared for a series of high-level interactions leading up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman are slated to be in Beijing on April 24 to attend different types of meetings of the SCO and interact with their counterparts from the member states.

The eight-member SCO, in which India is considered to be the latest entrant along with Pakistan, is about to hold its summit in the Chinese city of Qingdao.

The SCO consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.

Before the summit starts, the organisation which is focused on anti-terrorism cooperation is holding many of ministerial and officials’ meetings to work out a firm agenda for the summit to provide a new direction to the grouping.

SCO Foreign and Defence Ministers meetings are also scheduled on April 24 and will be held almost around the same time, according to officials here.

Both sides are of great significance for these meetings to reset the ties as they were taking place after President Xi Jinping commenced his second-five-year tenure last month with the prospect of continuing in power for life following the removal of a two-term limit for the president.

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