Report: India to appoint envoy in Singapore as new ambassador to China

NEW DELHI, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government will appoint its High Commissioner to Singapore Jaishankar as the next ambassador to China, the newspaper Indian Express reported Saturday.

Jaishankar will replace Nirupama Rao as India's Ambassador to China in Beijing after the latter has been nominated foreign secretary, said the report quoting an unnamed official source.

Son of veteran Indian strategic affairs expert K. Subrahmanyam, Jaishankar was joint secretary at the America's division of the Ministry of External Affairs when India and U.S. negotiated the nuclear deal from 2004 to 2007, according to the report.

The 54-year-old diplomat speaks Russian, Hungarian and a little Japanese as his wife is a Japanese. He also served as deputy chief of mission in Tokyo and ambassador in Prague, said the report.