Vijay Keshav Gokhale

Gokhale hails from Pune.[9] He is fluent in Marathi, Hindi, English, Sanskrit[10] and Mandarin Chinese.[11] He is married to Vandana Gokhale and they have a son, Jayant Gokhale. Vijay Gokhale holds a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Delhi.[12][13]

Gokhale is an Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1981 batch.[11] He served in Indian diplomatic missions in Hong Kong, Hanoi, Beijing and New York.[7] He served as the Deputy Secretary (Finance), Director (China and East Asia) and Joint Secretary (East Asia) at the Ministry of External Affairs, India.[14]

Gokhale was the High Commissioner of India to Malaysia from January 2010 to October 2013[14] and the Indian Ambassador to Germany from October 2013 to January 2016.[15] He was the Indian Ambassador to China from 20 January 2016 to 21 October 2017.[3]

Vijay Gokhale is considered as an expert in Chinese.[12] He has the rare distinction of being the only Indian Foreign Service officer to have served in both mainland China and Taiwan.[16] He was the Director General of the India-Taipei Association, Taiwan.[17] 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.[11][18] Statements and actions since the beginning of his tenure indicate that he will push a moderate or dovish position on relations with China.[19] In June 2020 Gokhale stated that China is not seeking a New World Order.[20]

• Harsh V Shringla
• Dr. S Jaishankar
• Syed Akbaruddin
• Narendra Modi

• http://www.mea.gov.in/fs.htm