India has appointed Vikram Doraiswami, currently high commissioner to the UK, as its next ambassador to China. The move comes as the two nations work to rebuild ties after a military standoff on the Line of Actual Control. He will succeed Pradeep Rawat.
New Delhi: India named veteran Indian Foreign Service officer Vikram Doraiswami, from the 1992 batch, as its next ambassador to China on Thursday. Currently serving as high commissioner to the United Kingdom since September 2022, he is expected to assume the new role shortly, according to a brief statement from the external affairs ministry. Doraiswami has previously served as envoy to Uzbekistan, South Korea, and Bangladesh. His first foreign posting was to the Indian high commission in Hong Kong in May 1994, where he learned Mandarin at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, followed by a nearly four-year stint in Beijing from September 1996. A journalist-turned-diplomat, he worked as private secretary to late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Prime Minister’s Office in 2002. Other roles include India’s permanent mission to the UN in New York in 2006, consul general in Johannesburg in 2009, and various headquarters positions such as heading the Saarc division in 2011, joint secretary for Americas from 2012-2014, Bangladesh and Maldives division in 2018, and setting up the Indo-Pacific division in 2019. In Dhaka, he engaged across the political spectrum under Sheikh Hasina’s government. In the UK, he addressed concerns over Khalistani activities and contributed to elevating ties, including a free trade agreement signed in July 2025. He succeeds Pradeep Rawat, who helped normalize ties after the over four-year Ladakh standoff on the Line of Actual Control ended in October 2023. Since then, the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage has resumed, direct flights restarted, and restrictions on Chinese visas and investments eased.
