New Delhi:
India and China have shown a sudden zeal to improve ties since the disengagement along the Line of Actual Control a little over a month ago. The relationship between the two most populous nations in the world was on reverse gear since the military stand-off in Ladakh more than four years ago.
However, since November the momentum has boomeranged and seems to be on overdrive – almost as though both sides want to make up for the time lost since 2020. New Delhi and Beijing understand well that for Asia to see lasting peace, the two Asian giants must lead the way. Nowhere is there a better start to this, than to find a solution to the boundary issue. And so, both sides seem to have made this a priority.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday for a top-level meet to discuss the boundary issue. Though there has been no confirmation of this meeting from New Delhi yet, Beijing has said so in a foreign ministry statement.
“Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will meet on Wednesday in Beijing to discuss the China-India boundary question,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a statement on Monday.
“As agreed by China and India, Wang Yi and Ajit Doval will hold the 23rd meeting of Special Representatives for China-India boundary question in Beijing on December 18,” Chinese Ambassador Xu Feihong said on X.
This would be the first such meeting in five years – the last one being held in New Delhi in December 2019.
Since their first meeting more than a decade ago, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had given importance to finding a solution for effective border management, and the meeting in December 2019 was the 22nd meeting in the series of discussions to find a solution to settle any differences along the more-than 4,000 km Line of Actual Control or LAC.
The LAC has no clear demarcations and both sides have their differences in understanding of where the boundary lies in the harsh and arguably most difficult terrain, which span the highest mountain ranges in the world – The Himalayas. The border, originally between India and Tibet is now considered the boundary between India and China after Tibet’s takeover by China in 1959.
Both sides have, on several occasions, seen military face-offs by border patrol parties, each having their understanding of where exactly the boundary lies – which point on the mountain, valley or rivers mark or indicate the LAC. Though there are buffer zones created at several points along the LAC, even there, differences often crop up in how each side demarcates the boundary.
To find a solution to this, India and China had started boundary talks, but all of that came to a grinding halt after the deadly clashes between the two armies in 2020 in Galwan Valley in Ladakh, which saw soldiers from both sides killed in action.
It took more than four years of diplomacy and dialogue at the military and diplomatic levels for both sides to disengage – an agreement for which was reached in October this year, culminating is a rare formal meeting – also the first in five years – between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia.