New Delhi: Indian and Chinese negotiators have reached an agreement on “patrolling arrangements” along the eastern Ladakh border, India said on Monday (October 21), with Union external affairs minister S. Jaishankar stating that “the disengagement process has been completed” for the four-year-long military stand-off.
The time and place of Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s announcement has fuelled speculation on a thaw between the two countries, as it will pave the way for a likely meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia.
Misri noted the agreement at the MEA’s media briefing of the 16th BRICs summit which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend from October 22 to 23 in Kazan, Russia.
It is understood that Modi and Xi will meet on October 23 in Kazan, marking their first bilateral meeting since 2019.
The Indian foreign secretary made the announcement of an agreement while responding to a question about whether the two leaders would meet. While he didn’t answer the question directly, Misri was ready to make an announcement.
Speaking to journalists, Misri said:
“Many of you have questions about bilateral meetings on the sidelines and, in particular, a possible bilateral meeting between the prime minister and the president of China. Some of these questions are particularly timely and also appropriate, as I now have the opportunity to share with you. I can share that, over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other in a variety of forums. As a result of these discussions, an agreement has been reached on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020, and we will be taking the next steps on this.”
Misri did not reveal any other details of this agreement. Notably, there has been no announcement from the Chinese side till now.
Within an hour of the MEA briefing, Jaishankar, who was taking part in a private television channel’s event, stated that he couldn’t add much beyond what the foreign secretary had said but noted that “with the disengagement, we have returned to the situation as it was in 2020”.
“So, we can say the disengagement process with China has been completed,” he said, adding, “that’s as much as I can share with you. I’m sure, in due course, more details will emerge.”
Describing the agreement as a “positive development”, he said it was the result of “a patient and complicated process” since his meeting with Wang Yi at Moscow in September 2020.
“But now that we have reached an understanding on patrolling and maintaining the sanctity of the LAC, it creates the basis for the peace and tranquility that existed in the border areas before 2020. Hopefully, we will return to that peace and tranquility,” Jaishankar said.
In May 2020, Chinese troops were discovered to be intruding into Indian territory in Eastern Ladakh, sparking several clashes with Indian soldiers, including a deadly hand-to-hand skirmish in June that claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
After multiple rounds of diplomatic and military talks, disengagement was achieved at about four friction points, which involved the creation of ‘buffer zones’.
But, the strategic areas of Depsang Plains and Demchok remain unresolved for the last three years. The deadlock persists as China claims that the Depsang Plains and Demchok are legacy issues, while India insists that they are part of the current stand-off.
At the MEA briefing, the foreign secretary was directly asked if the agreement had resolved the pending issues of Demchok and Depsang, but he simply reiterated the previous statement.
However, Jaishankar answered a similar question by claiming both sides had “blocked” patrolling at the start of the stand-off. “What has happened is that we have reached an understanding which will allow patrolling. For example, you mentioned Depsang, but that’s not the only place – there are other places too. To my knowledge, the understanding is that we will be able to patrol as we were doing in 2020,” he said.
Ties between India and China have been frozen for the last four years since the stand-off between the two armies began at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
Since the end of the pandemic, speculation about a Modi-Xi meeting has surfaced each year ahead of major multilateral events that both leaders are set to attend.
After the 2019 second Informal summit in Mamallapuram, there has been no formal bilateral meeting between the leaders of the Asian giants. Their interactions have mostly been limited to brief exchanges during summit dinners – at the G20 in Indonesia in 2022 and the SCO in South Africa in 2023.
Ahead of Delhi hosting the G-20 summit last year, speculations were rife about a thaw in ties to facilitate Xi’s visit. However, the momentum waned when the Chinese president chose to skip the event in the Indian capital.
A month after the Indian general elections ended, signs of fresh impetus emerged in the frequency of high-level meetings.
In the first week of July, Jaishankar met with Wang Yi at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana. 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”.
Within three weeks, they met again, this time in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, where both attended the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting.
The Indian minister had noted that given the current state of geopolitics and global economy, it was “in our mutual interest to stabilise our ties and focus on growth and development”. “This requires us to approach our immediate issues with a sense of purpose and urgency,” Jaishankar added. The Chinese foreign ministry stated that both sides had agreed to “promote new progress in border affairs consultations”.
The baton then passed to the foreign office-led Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs, which had back-to-back meetings on July 31 and August 30. At the last WMCC meeting, the two separate press releases had talked about “narrowing differences”.
On September 12, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval also met with Wang Yi and emphasised “urgency” and the need to “redouble” efforts to resolve remaining areas. The Wire had noted how India’s readout had toned down its language on China compared to the last year’s meeting of the two officials.
A week later, Chinese ambassador to India, Xu Feihong stated that India-China relations had reached a “crucial stage of improvement and development”, highlighting the increased frequency of high-level meetings in recent months.
The Chinese defence ministry also joined the steady drumbeat with the spokesperson stating on September 26 that the “discussions and communications have enabled the two sides to reduce differences and build consensus”.
