and that indicates some rethink about where they want to take our relationship but thats for them to answer he said in an apparent reference to the eastern ladakh border standoffalso former indian ambassador to china vikram misri who in his virtual farewell call on chinese foreign minister wang yi on december 6 said challenges had overpowered vast opportunities in sinoindia tiesour relations comprised both opportunities and challenges and even though certain challenges since last year had overpowered the vast opportunities in the relationship misri told wang apparently referring to the ladakh standoff which posed a major obstacle for the tiesfor misri who took charge as indias envoy to beijing in january in 2019 the posting turned out to be the toughest diplomatic challenge as the two countries came out of the doklam standoff in 2017 with first informal summit between prime minister narendra modi and chinese president xi jinping in wuhan in 2018 followed by the second one in chennai in 2019 with a wide development agenda however bilateral ties suffered with the eastern ladakh standoffin his informal chat with the media before he left for new delhi misri recalled how the chennai summit held high hopes and highlighted two significant initiatives modi and xi had agreed to implementthe two countries had decided to establish a highlevel economic and trade dialogue hetd mechanism which was to be headed by the vice premier of china and finance minister of indiait was expected to look into all issues related to bilateral trade and business cooperation including indias concerns related to the trade deficitchina had set up such a highlevel mechanism only with the us to improve trade tiesalso the two leaders decided to designate 2020 as the year of indiachina cultural and people to people exchanges and the two countries chalked out an elaborate schedule of 70 events to deepen exchanges at all levels including between their legislatures political parties cultural and youth organisations and militariessadly due to the chill in bilateral ties following the eastern ladakh standoff both the initiatives failed to take off while the hetd has not met so far the two countries have not held a single programme of the 70 events plannedhighlighting chinas stand on the current state of ties wang in his meeting with misri said that without mutual trust it is difficult to bring the two sides together even if there are no mountains in the waychina and india should become partners and friends and should not be a threat to each other he saidobservers say the doklam and ladakh standoffs warrant a fundamental reset of the indiachina relations with a new paradigm and strategic framework to rebuild the tieson the domestic front the highprofile conclave of the ruling communist party of china cpc in november adopted a landmark resolution of the partys major achievements in the last 100 years besides clearing the decks for a record third term for president xi next year and perhaps beyondthe landmark resolution the only third of