China Picks Xu Feihong as New Ambassador to India, PTI Says

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Chinese President Xi Jinping appointed Xu Feihong as the country’s new ambassador to India, the Press Trust of India reported, filling a post that’s been vacant for more than a year.

China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the appointment to the news agency, although no official statement has been made yet, PTI said.

Xu, 60, previously served as China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, heading the mission in Kabul from March 2011 to August 2013. He later was appointed as China’s top envoy in Romania between January 2015 to May 2018.

The new ambassador replaces Sun Weidong, who stepped down from the position in late 2022, three years after he was posted to New Delhi.

Xu’s appointment as envoy to India comes at a tricky time for the nuclear-armed neighbors. Relations have been frozen since June 2020 when clashes between soldiers along the disputed Himalayan border left at least 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese dead. The two countries have made incremental progress in resolving the border crisis in 21 rounds of diplomatic-military talks since then.

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