New Delhi: Even as External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar stated that “75 per cent” of the “disengagement problems” with China have been resolved, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and emphasised the “urgency” and the need to “redouble” efforts to resolve the remaining areas.
At their previous meeting, Doval had told Wang Yi, Member of the CPC Political Bureau and Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, that the military stand-off in Ladakh had “eroded strategic trust.”
A year later, such language was notably absent from the Indian readout of the NSA’s discussions with Wang during their talks on the sidelines of a BRICS meeting in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday.
The latest meeting takes place hot on the heels after a particularly intense level of engagement between the two countries.
Back-to-back meetings of Indian, Chinese foreign ministers
In July, Indian and Chinese foreign ministers had held two back-to-back meetings on the sidelines of multilateral summits in Astana and Vientiane.
This was followed by the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) having two meetings within a month, on July 31 and Aug 30. Earlier, the gap between WMCC meetings ranged from four to six months.
Next month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Russia for the annual BRICS summit, where Chinese President Xi Jinping will also be in attendance. It remains to be seen whether the two leaders will have any interaction, even if brief, on the sidelines of the event.
Jaishankar, who is currently on a visit to Switzerland, stated at an interaction with a Swiss think tank that there had been “some progress” in talks.
“Now those negotiations are going on. We made some progress. I would say roughly you can say about 75 percent of the disengagement problems are sorted out,” he said at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
He said that the bigger issue was of militarisation of the border.
“How does one deal with it? I think we have to deal with it. In the meanwhile, after the clash, it has affected the entirety of the relationship because you cannot have violence at the border and then say the rest of the relationship is insulated from it,” he said.
Jaishankar had made similar argument that the issue was not of ‘land grab’ by China, but of “forward deployment” by Chinese military which had led to the stand-off which began in April-May 2020.
The external affairs minister indicated that the relationship can improve if there is a resolution to the row.
“We hope that if there is a solution to the disengagement and there is a return to peace and tranquility, then we can look at other possibilities,” he said.
Deadlock over Depsang and Demchok remains unsolved
In May 2020, Chinese troops were spotted intruding into Indian territory in Eastern Ladakh, resulting in several clashes with Indian soldiers. A deadly hand-to-hand skirmish in June 2020 claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
Following multiple rounds of diplomatic and military talks, disengagement occurred at around four friction points, but the strategic areas of Depsang Plains and Demchok remain unresolved.
China has asserted that the Depsang Plains and Demchok are legacy issues, while India maintains that they are part of the ongoing stand-off dispute.
When Doval met with Wang Yi in South Africa in July 2023, he conveyed that the stand-off had “eroded strategic trust and the public and political basis of the relationship”. A year later, there was no such public rebuke.
“The meeting gave the two sides an opportunity to review the recent efforts towards finding an early resolution of the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which will create conditions to stabilise and rebuild bilateral relations,” said the MEA statement of Doval’s discussions with Wang Yi on Thursday (Sep 12).
The Indian readout stated that the “both sides sides agreed to work with urgency and redouble their efforts to realise complete disengagement in the remaining areas”.
“India-China bilateral relationship important for region and world”
In language almost identical to the previous meeting, the MEA statement noted that the NSA conveyed peace and tranquility in border areas, along with respect for the LAC, as essential for normalising bilateral relations.
“Both sides must fully abide by relevant bilateral agreements, protocols, and understandings reached in the past by the two governments. The two sides agreed that the India-China bilateral relationship is significant not just for the two countries but also for the region and the world,” the statement read.
The Chinese foreign ministry stated that the two senior officials “agreed to implement the consensus reached by their leaders, work to enhance mutual understanding and trust, create conditions for improving bilateral relations, and continue to maintain communication on this matter”.
The readout also noted that they “agreed that stabilising China-India relations aligns with the fundamental and long-term interests of their peoples and contributes to regional peace and development”
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Yi underlined that China and India should uphold “independence, choose unity and cooperation, and strive for mutual success, avoiding unnecessary friction”.
Additionally, it claimed that Doval told Wang that both countries should “focus” on development, as the rapid rise of 2.8 billion people “will change the entire world.”