New Delhi: After a year, Indian and Chinese foreign ministers met for a formal discussion on the sidelines of yet another multilateral summit – this time at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar said there is a “need to redouble efforts to achieve complete disengagement” in eastern Ladakh.
The Indian foreign minister is in Kazakhstan leading the Indian delegation, in lieu of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who skipped the SCO summit as it started just as the parliament session ended.
Jaishankar had briefly met with Wang at the Munich Security Conference in February, but their last sit-down meeting was on the side of the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum in Jakarta in July 2023. At that time, Wang had not been designated a foreign minister, as Qin Gang was still nominally one though he had not been in public for over a month.
On the last day of the SCO summit on Thursday, the two ministers met with their senior officers.
The Indian readout underlined that the border issue was a singular focus of the agenda, with both sides engaging in “in-depth exchange of views on finding an early resolution of the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh to stabilise and rebuild bilateral relations”.
Relations between India and China have largely remained frozen due to ongoing tensions at the border, stemming from the stand-off in eastern Ladakh that began in May 2020 which has already taken the lives of 20 Indian soldiers. Despite some progress, with de-escalation achieved at four friction points, two significant areas remain unresolved.
China has called for the normalisation of relations, asserting that these two remaining points are part of a broader, long-standing boundary dispute. However, India disagrees with this perspective, maintaining that the unresolved friction points need to be addressed to close the chapter of the current stand-off and then move to restore bilateral ties.
The Indian press release stated that the Indian and Chinese ministers “agreed that the prolongation of the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side”.
Additionally, Jaishankar underlined the “need to redouble efforts to achieve complete disengagement from the remaining areas in Eastern Ladakh and restore border peace and tranquillity in order to remove obstacles towards the return of normalcy in bilateral relations”.
He also underscored the necessity of honouring past bilateral agreements and understandings, respecting the Line of Actual Control, and ensuring peace and tranquility in the border areas.
Jaishankar also brought up his catchphrase of his recent statements on China, emphasising that the relationship should uphold the principles of “mutual respect, mutual sensitivity, and mutual interests”.
The Chinese foreign ministry’s communique about the meeting does not contradict the Indian version, but also indicated that there was no common meeting ground with Beijing reaffirming that the border issue should proceed on a parallel track to the resumption of ties.
According to a translation of the Chinese language readout quoting the CPC politburo member, “We must adhere to positive thinking, on the one hand properly handle and control the situation in the border area, on the other hand actively resume normal exchanges, promote each other, and move towards each other.”
Wang articulated his own vision akin to Jaishankar’s three ‘mutuals’, stating that both sides agreed to follow a consensus of leadership and respect, understand, take care and trust each other.
The Chinese readout stated that Jaishankar observed that the two neighbours faced “common challenges” in the current complex geopolitical situation.
“India hopes to work with China to constructively resolve specific differences and open a new page in India-China relations as soon as possible, guided by the grand vision reached by the leaders of the two countries,” asserted China’s foreign ministry.
It also noted that Jaishankar had averred that India will “adhere to an independent foreign policy, adhere to the concept of multilateralism, promote multipolarization, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries”.
Earlier in the statement, Wang expressed hope that the two Asian neighbours would collaborate to “resist camp confrontation”, a Chinese term often used to refer to the Quad grouping, which includes India, the US, Japan, and Australia.
Wang also brought up the 70th anniversary of the Panchsheel principles of peaceful coexistence.
Reiterating the need to intensify talks, India’s communique that the ministers agreed “to continue and step-up meetings of the diplomatic and military officials of the two sides to take forward their discussions to resolve the remaining issues at the earliest”.
A meeting of the foreign-office-led Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) would be held soon, the ministers decreed. The last round was held in March this year.
Along with holding the meeting soon, both the press releases also noted that India had extended support for China’s presidency of the SCO.
When Jaishankar and Wang Yi had met in Indonesia in July 2023, there had been buzz of a breakthrough with a possible meeting between Modi and Xi at the BRICS summit. It had been perceived that India would like to facilitate atmospherics so that President Xi could attend the G-20 summit in New Delhi.
Ten days after Jakarta, Wang met with the Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval in Johannesburg on the margins of the gathering of top national security czars of the BRICS countries. Doval had told the Chinese minister that the Ladakh stand-off had “eroded strategic trust”.
A Chinese foreign ministry readout of the Doval-Wang meeting had indicated for the first time that Modi and Xi had substantial discussions at the G-20 summit in Indonesia in September 2022. Since India – along with China – had said that there had been no meeting and only an exchange of pleasantries, New Delhi had to scramble to explain the eight-month gap in sharing information publicly.
The top Indian and Chinese leaders attended the August 2023 BRICS summit in South Africa, but till now, both sides have not said that if there was any talk between them.
Chinese President Xi opted not to attend the G-20 summit in New Delhi, an event Modi had promoted as a diplomatic centrepiece during an election year for his government.
The latest India-China meeting took place exactly a month after the results of the Indian general elections were announced, which brought back Modi for a third term, but with a reduced mandate.
In the last few weeks, China had issued two statements of protests related to India. The first was when Modi thanked the Taiwanese president on Twitter for his congratulatory message on his third term. Notably, the Chinese president did not publicly felicitate Modi after the elections. Instead, the second highest-ranking leader, the Chinese premier Li Qiang, extended his felicitations.
Later, China had repeatedly expressed annoyance over the visit of US lawmakers to India to meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama.
With Modi foregoing the SCO summit, one potential meeting with Xi did not take place. However, both leaders are set to attend the BRICS summit in Russia in a couple of months, which Modi is certainly not going to miss, given that the host will be the Russian President.