India, China to resume direct flights after 5 years as relations thaw

India and China plan to resume direct flights this month between some of their cities after a five-year suspension as relations between the two countries begin to thaw, Indian authorities have announced.

The closer ties come in the face of the United States President Donald Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies.

Direct flights between the two countries were suspended during the COVID pandemic in 2020 and did not resume as Beijing and New Delhi engaged in prolonged border tensions.

On Thursday, India’s embassy to China said in a post on social media platform WeChat that flights between designated cities will resume by late October, subject to commercial carriers ‘ decisions.

The resumption is part of the Indian government’s “approach towards gradual normalization of relations between India and China”, the embassy added.

India’s largest carrier IndiGo announced on Thursday that it would resume flights from Kolkata, India, to Guangzhou, China, from October 26.

The resumption comes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years to attend last month’s meeting of regional security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

There, Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that India and China were development partners, not rivals, and discussed ways to strengthen trade ties amid global tariff uncertainty fuelled by Trump.

The US president raised the tariff rate on Indian imports to a stiff 50 percent last month, citing the nation’s continuing purchases of Russian oil. He also urged the European Union to slap 100 percent tariffs on China and India as part of his efforts to pressure Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.