Despite numerous tries, China has yet to achieve inroads to bring home its former soldier, Wang Qi, from India. A spate of bureaucratic tangles has long prevented Wang, now in his 80s, from seeing his family for 54 years, from the time when he was arrested by Indian authorities in 1963 for border crossing.
China has exhausted several efforts to convince India to allow Wang to return to his hometown in Shaanxi Province, where his mother died in 2006 waiting for him to return. His failure to return in time to see his mother alive one last time has been the result of complex paperwork India has yet to address.
The border issue that had Wang arrested happened in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War, a conflict between China and India over their territorial disputes over their shared borders. Being a prisoner of war, he had little recourse even as he argued that he unintentionally lost his way to the Indian side.
Wang, now a father of three to his Indian wife Sushila, still maintains his desire to return to China from his current town of Tirodi in India to see his elder brother, who he conversed with for the first time in more than half a decade through a BBC interview that featured his unfortunate story.
The Chinese government, through its embassy to India, has done its level best to bring Wang back to China, recognizing that having family members in both the mainland and India would require him to make a "thoughtful and appropriate choice," said ambassador Luo Zhaohui.
Lu added that part of the Chinese embassy's role in looking after Wang's welfare since 2013 include the provision of a living allowance and a 10-year passport visa that would allow him to return to China, apart from convincing India to facilitate all legalities to restore his freedom of abode.