Vijay Keshav Gokhale IFS, born 24 January 1959, is a retired Indian diplomat and the 32nd

Foreign Secretary of India The foreign secretary of India ( IAST: ''Videśa Saciva'') is the top diplomat of India and administrative head of the Ministry of External Affairs. This post is held by an Indian foreign service officer of the rank of secretary to the govern ...

. Gokhale previously served as the

Ambassador of India to China The Ambassador of India to China is the chief diplomatic representative of the Republic of India to the People's Republic of China. Ambassadors See also * Embassy of India, Beijing References External linksEmbassy of India in Beijing
{ ...

Personal life & education

Gokhale hails from

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. He did his schooling at the St. Columba's School, Delhi and completed his MA in History from

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1981. He is fluent in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, Hindi, English,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

. He is married to Vandana Gokhale and they have a son, Jayant Gokhale.

Career

Gokhale is an

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is the diplomatic service and a central civil service of the Government of India under the Ministry of External Affairs. The Foreign Secretary is the head of the service. Vinay Mohan Kwatra is the 34th and the ...

officer of the 1981 batch. He served in Indian diplomatic missions in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and New York. He served as the Deputy Secretary (Finance), Director (China and East Asia) and Joint Secretary (East Asia) at the Ministry of External Affairs, India. Gokhale was the High Commissioner of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to Malaysia from January 2010 to October 2013 and the

n Ambassador to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

from October 2013 to January 2016. He was the

n Ambassador to China from 20 January 2016 to 21 October 2017. He is currently a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank, Carnegie India. Gokhale is one of India's most reputed and well-versed

sinologists Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...

Expertise

Vijay Gokhale is considered as an expert on Chinese affairs. He has the rare distinction of being the only

officer to have served in both mainland China and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. He was the Director General of the

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Association, Taiwan. Gokhale during his tenure as the Ambassador of India to China, played a key role in resolving the 2017 Doklam crisis between both the nations. Statements and actions since the beginning of his tenure indicate that he will push a moderate or dovish position on relations with China. In June 2020 Gokhale stated that China is not seeking a New World Order.

Publications

In 2021 he published a research paper titled "The Road from Galwan" examining different factors influencing the Galwan Valley clash between India and China in Eastern Ladakh, along the Line of Actual Control, and the way forward for the two Himalayan neighbors. Gokhale announced his very first book titled "Tiananmen Square - The Making of a Protest" which is an eye-witness account of the 1989 brutal military crackdown in China and its aftermath from an Indian perspective. * ''Tiananmen Square: The Making of a Protest.'' Harper Collins, May 2021. * ''The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India.'' Penguin Random House. July 2021.

References

External links

* http://www.mea.gov.in/fs.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Gokhale, Vijay Keshav Living people Ambassadors of India to Germany Indian Foreign Service officers Ambassadors of India to China High Commissioners of India to Malaysia 1959 births People from Pune Indian Foreign Secretaries