Vijay Gokhale

Mr. Vijay Gokhale is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. Mr. Gokhale retired from the Indian Foreign Service in January 2020 after a diplomatic career that spanned thirty-nine years. From January 2018 to January 2020, he served as the foreign secretary of India.

Prior to his term as foreign secretary, Mr. Gokhale had served as India’s high commissioner to Malaysia from January 2010 to October 2013, as ambassador of India to the Federal Republic of Germany from October 2013 to January 2016, and as ambassador of India to the People’s Republic of China from January 2016 to October 2017. He has served as head of the India-Taipei Association, in Taiwan, from July 2003 to January 2007. During his time in the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs, he has also worked in key positions in the East Asia Division, including as the joint secretary (Director General) for East Asia from March 2007 to December 2009.

He has worked extensively on matters relating to the Indo-Pacific region with a special emphasis on Chinese politics and diplomacy. Since his retirement from the Foreign Service, Mr. Gokhale has contributed opinion pieces to the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Times of India, the Hindu, and the Indian Express. He has written three books on China, namely Tiananmen Square: The Making of a Protest (2021), The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India (2021), and After Tiananmen: The Rise of China (2022).

Mr. Gokhale lives in Pune, India. He is also a distinguished faculty at the Symbiosis International University in Pune, since January 2021.

Mr. Gokhale speaks English, Hindi, Marathi, and Mandarin Chinese. He did a master’s degree in History from the University of Delhi in 1980. He studied Mandarin Chinese at the Chinese University of Hongkong in 1983-84.