Pradeep Rawat is India’s next ambassador to China

NEW DELHI: India’s envoy to the Netherlands, Pradeep Rawat will take over as the ambassador to China at a time when bilateral relations between the two countries have hit rock bottom. He will replace

Vikram Misri

, who is scheduled to take over as deputy

NSA

very soon.


Rawat served in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) headquarters as joint secretary in charge of East Asia, which includes China, before assuming charge as ambassador to Indonesia. He will now take the new charge at a very tough time — Chinese troops remain aggressively positioned in eastern Ladakh and other points on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), there is very little bilateral interaction, and India is attempting to decouple from Chinese-controlled supply chains.

Politically too, there has been almost no interaction between the two countries, and that could prove a problem going forward. In addition, China’s activities on its periphery and vis-à-vis India are both expansionist and aggressive.

Misri will be adding much-needed China expertise to the National Security Council, where he will be on deputation. The MEA bureaucracy will be looking at a shuffle in the coming months as a number of top-level ambassadorial posts open up, from London to Tokyo, South Africa, Bhutan, Nepal, Canada etc.