NEW DELHI, July 23: India will start issuing tourist visas to Chinese nationals after a gap of five years, the Indian Embassy in Beijing announced on Wednesday.
The announcement, that was called “positive” by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, marks another step in normalising India-China ties ruptured by the military stand-off at the Line of Actual Control and Galwan clashes in 2020.
According to an official notice posted online and on Chinese social media, the visas can be applied for online beginning from Thursday and obtained after an appointment at the Indian Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Amidst the bonhomie, Beijing rejected concerns in Delhi and Dhaka about China’s latest dam project on the “Yarlung Sangpo” (Brahmaputra River) in Tibet and said it had communicated with both the governments.
Responding to a question about the visa issuance on Wednesday, a Chinese MFA spokesperson said Beijing had taken note of the “positive move.” “Easing cross-border travel is widely beneficial. China will maintain communication and consultation with India to further facilitate travel between the two countries,” said spokesperson Guo Jiakun in Beijing.
After the Covid pandemic and then violence between the two militaries after China amassed troops at the LAC, both countries had cancelled all flights and most visa services between them. China restored visa applications for Indian students in 2022 and for business and tourism purposes subsequently. It issued an estimated 85,000 visas between January and June 2025. India had issued visas in business and student categories, but not for tourism until now. According to the Ministry of Tourism figures in 2019, before the lockdown, more than 3,00,000 Chinese tourists had visited India and about 8,69,000 Indian tourists had gone to China.
After the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Kazan last October and agreed to restore ties, a series of high-level meetings discussed the next steps, including the start of the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra. Most recently, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar travelled to China on July 14-16, and met with his counterpart Wang Yi, and also called on Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice-President Hang Zheng, before attending the SCO Council for Foreign Ministers.
The Chinese ambassador in Delhi Xu Feihong said resuming the Kailash pilgrimage was “an important initiative taken by China to improve relations between the two countries,” indicating that it was India’s turn to take the next positive step. Both sides are also working on resuming direct flights between the two countries soon, understood to be announced before PM Modi’s visit to China for the SCO summit, which is expected on August 31-September 1, officials said.
When asked by reporters about the hydropower project being constructed on the Yarlung Sangpo, Mr Guo said it was “fully within China’s sovereignty.” “China is engaged in cooperation with downstream countries on sharing hydrological data, flood prevention and disaster reduction,” he said, adding that Beijing has had the “necessary communication” with India and Bangladesh.
Construction for the massive 60,000 MW Medog Hydropower station, set to be the world’s largest, began last week, and was flagged off by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. In a response in Parliament, the government had said India had “registered its concerns” with China over the ecological and disaster risks of the project in December 2024, while the Bangladesh’s Ministry of Water Resources had also requested Beijing’s response on its concerns in March this year.
(Manas Dasgupta)