The visit would aim at strengthening India-China relations and comes ahead of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s scheduled visit to that country soon, Congress sources said here on Tuesday.

The trip comes riding on an invitation extended to Ms Gandhi to visit China by President Hu Jintao during his India visit last year, and quite understandably, a meeting between the two tops the agenda.

Significantly, Ms Gandhi would be the first foreign leader to meet Mr Hu after his re-election as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and head of the Standing Committee of the CPC Politburo for a second term. Congress sources said the visit was in acknowledgement of the CPC’s view that Congress had played a major role in improving relations between the two countries.

While Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma and senior Congress MP Karan Singh are scheduled to accompany Ms Gandhi, there were unconfirmed reports that Rahul Gandhi might also accompany his mother on the trip. Interestingly, Ms Gandhi’s last visit to China was nearly 20 years ago, when she had accompanied her husband, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in a historic trip.

“That trip had opened a new chapter in India-China relations, and now Ms Gandhi would take forward the ties further through her trip,” the sources said.

The sources said that during her visit, Ms Gandhi would discuss the overall India-China relations with the Chinese leadership and not focus on specific and particularly ticklish issues like the border disputes. “She will discuss economic and cultural ties as also the need for closer contacts between the ruling parties of the two countries,” the sources said.