India will resume issuing tourist visas to Chinese nationals from 24 July, the country’s embassy in Beijing announced on Wednesday. The decision ends a five-year halt imposed after a deadly June 2020 clash along the disputed Himalayan frontier and marks the first time since then that mainland visitors can apply for leisure travel to India. Relations between the two Asian powers have shown tentative improvement over the past year. New Delhi had already relaxed some curbs on business visas and, together with Beijing, reopened direct passenger flights in March. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the restoration of tourist visas “a positive move” that will facilitate people-to-people exchanges, adding that Beijing will keep talking with India to further ease travel. The visa suspension was part of a broader retaliation that included curbs on Chinese investment and bans on hundreds of Chinese mobile apps, while Beijing halted most Indian visa categories during the COVID-19 pandemic. The neighbours, which share a 3,800-kilometre contested border and fought a brief war in 1962, have held several rounds of high-level talks, including a meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia last October, but a comprehensive border settlement remains elusive. The latest step suggests both sides are looking to widen diplomatic and economic engagement despite lingering security tensions.