India-China Reopen Live Flights After 5 Years Of Suspended Suri

JAKARTA - India and China will restart direct flights between cities selected this month, ending the suspension of more than five years. This decision initiated a move signaling easing bilateral tensions.

There has been no direct flight between China and India since 2020, although China is India's largest bilateral trading partner.

Reported by Reuters on Thursday, October 2, India's largest airline, IndiGo will start a non-day flight between Kolkata and Guangzhou on October 26. The airline also plans to launch a route connecting New Delhi with the Chinese city.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China a month ago for the first time in seven years to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) regional security bloc.

Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed India and China are development partners, not rivals, and discussed ways to strengthen trade relations amid uncertainty global tariffs.

Modi also conveyed India's commitment to increasing relations and voiced concerns about its increasingly widening trade deficit with China, which reached nearly $99.2 billion.

He stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability along the borders of the two disputed countries, where clashes in 2020 sparked a five-year military stalemate.