India and China have agreed on patrolling arrangements along their disputed border, a senior Indian official has said, paving the way for an easing of tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours that have overshadowed their diplomatic and trading relations.
Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri announced the understanding on the eve of a summit of leaders of Brics [intergovernmental organisation] countries due to begin on Tuesday in Kazan, Russia, which the Indian and Chinese leaders — Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping — are due to attend.
India and China refer to their frontier as the Line of Actual Control and clashes between the two sides in eastern Ladakh in 2020 left at least 24 troops, mostly Indians, dead.
“I can share with you 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,” said Mr Misri in Delhi.
“As a result of these discussions, agreement has been arrived at 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.”
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the Indian statement. In Beijing on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian reiterated that China would work towards “greater Brics co-operation” and a “new era for the global south”.
The potential agreement comes a month after Wang Yi, Xi’s top diplomat, held talks with India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval. Chinese state media said at the time that the two sides had “agreed to work together to create conditions for the improvement of bilateral relations”.
India and China fought a war in 1962, and the almost 3,500km-long Line of Actual Control, which crosses through some of the world’s highest places in the Himalayas, is one of Asia’s most tense arenas of geopolitical conflict.
China has built villages along the Line of Actual Control in Tibet in an effort to bolster its presence there and India is undertaking a similar effort under its Vibrant Villages programme.
After the clashes in and around Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, both sides each deployed at least 50,000 more troops to the Line of Actual Control, with India diverting some soldiers there from the areas bordering Pakistan. India’s Government complained that areas where its troops formerly patrolled freely had been blocked by their Chinese counterparts.
The Modi government has since 2020 driven a hard line on the issue, making de-escalation around the Line of Actual Control a condition of resuming “normal” relations with Beijing.
Details of which specific areas were covered by the understanding announced on Monday were not immediately available.
— Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis