India’s new envoy to China Pradeep Kumar Rawat takes charge

Beijing: Pradeep Kumar Rawat, the new Ambassador of India to China, assumed office on Monday. Rawat reached China on March 4 and underwent mandatory quarantine as per China’s COVID-19 protocol.

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The Embassy of India here tweeted, “H.E. Mr. Pradeep Kumar Rawat, Ambassador of India to the People’s Republic of China, assumed the charge of @EOIBeijing today.”

An Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of 1990 batch, Rawat was earlier India’s Ambassador to the Netherlands.

Ambassador Rawat joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1990. He opted to learn Mandarin Chinese as his foreign language and served in Hong Kong and Beijing between 1992 and 1997. He returned to Delhi in 1997 and served in the East Asia Division for more than 3 years. He then served as the First Secretary in the Indian Mission in Mauritius.

Rawat served as India’s Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste from September 2017-December 2020 and India’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and India’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from January 2021-February. 2022.

Rawat’s appointment comes in the midst of the eastern Ladakh border standoff.

He speaks Mandarin fluently.

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