New Delhi:
A military delegation from India has suspended a scheduled visit to Beijing after China refused a visa to a senior air force officer from Arunachal Pradesh.
Group Captain Panging was part of the team that was to travel to Beijing on January 10. The reasons for his visa being rejected were not shared.
The Indian delegation had planned a four-day trip to Beijing under a bilateral defence exchange programme. The 30 representatives of the army, navy and air force were to spend time in Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. The visit was reciprocal to the one undertaken by the Chinese last month and is part of the confidence building measures between the two countries.
Relations between India and China dipped in 2010 when the then Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General B S Jaswal was denied a visa as he was serving in Jammu and Kashmir, inferring that China questioned the status of the state. General Jaswal was to head a military delegation and an angry India cancelled that visit, besides putting on hold defence
exchanges.
The ice was broken when India sent a delegation under a Major General in June last year. After that visit, two more visits took place between the two sides.