Zee Media Bureau
Beijing: Vice President Hamid Ansari will embark on a five-day visit to China from Thursday to attend events marking the 60th anniversary of Panchsheel treaty signed between the two countries in 1954 in Beijing.
Ansari will begin his visist from the historic city of Xian, where celebrated Chinese Buddhist monk Huen Tsang translated Buddhist scriptures brought from India in seventh century.
Ansari will visit the Wild Goose Pagoda, built to highlight Huen Tsang`s efforts to tour India in 645 AD through the ancient Silk Road. He returned home after a 17-year-long sojourn to India with precious Buddhist scriptures.
He later translated the works into Chinese which helped popularising the Buddhism in China.
Both India and China have accorded high importance to the visit as Ansari is the first top Indian dignitary to visit China after the change of government in New Delhi.
There is high expectations in both the countries given Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s familiarity with Chinese leadership. He had visit China four times as Chief Minister of Gujarat.
India will look to further strengthen bilateral ties ahead of the Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in Brazil next months.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chief of Army Gen Bikram Singh are expected to visit Beijing later.
Given the primacy of trade in the relationship between the two sides, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman is also part of Ansari`s visit.
She will hold talks with her Chinese counterpart to fine tune the roadmap to increase the bilateral trade stagnating around USD 65.47 billion as well as India`s concerns of over USD 35 billion trade deficit.
