Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to India from August 18-20, achieved a significant goal for Beijing: to ensure the resolution of the border dispute with India for future generations. Wang, a close aide of Chinese President Xi Jinping and a senior member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC), accomplished what many believed would be nearly impossible—convincing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. This will be Modi’s first visit to China since the deadly clash in Galwan in June 2020.
During his stay, Wang held productive meetings with Prime Minister Modi, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. These discussions sent a clear message to the international community that the two nuclear-armed neighbours are unlikely to engage in a hot war along the border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), despite New Delhi’s challenging decision to move past the Galwan incident. It seems that India’s rhetoric of China being an adversary while it readies itself for a two-front war is now a thing of the past.
So, what exactly happened?
It will be simplistic to assume that the rising tensions between the U.S. and India over tariffs and secondary sanctions imposed by the U.S. President Donald Trump has led to the détente between New Delhi and Beijing. That’s lazy analysis. Relations between India and China had been warming up since Modi and Xi met in Kazan, Russia in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit where the Indian Prime Minister told the Chinese President that it was his “great pleasure” to meet him after a gap of five years.
Plans have been underway since then to normalise ties with China. India was quick to clinch a deal a few days prior on October 21, 2024 under which the Indian Army was allowed to resume patrolling in Demchok and Depsang up to the points which were blocked by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since the military faceoff began in the eastern sector of Ladakh in April-May 2020.
Depsang and Demchok are two strategically significant areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China in the Eastern Ladakh region. These territories have emerged as focal points of friction between the two countries due to their importance in military and geopolitical terms.
The standoff still continues and as do the de-militarised “buffer” zones, with large portions of deployment still standing firm at the border areas, even as Prime Minister Modi readies to meet President Xi again on 31 August – less than a year since they met in Russia.
The de-militarised zones were created as a result of the first phase of disengagement agreements under which troops of both sides decided to disengage and not conduct patrolling. These zones also limit or eliminate grazing activities by both sides in the designated areas – thereby creating an adverse impact on the local economies and the livelihoods of grazers of Ladakh, especially in the ‘Chushul Bowl’ area in the high-altitude Kailash Range. There has been no decision yet on what happens to these large zones even as the standoff continues.
The plan to explore an early harvest on boundary delimitation was decided during the 24th round of the Special Representatives’ dialogue on the Boundary Question between India and China, which was co-chaired by Wang and Doval.
The buffer zones have been established in areas like Pangong Tso Lake, Gogra-Hot Springs, Galwan Valley, and Depsang Plains. The army has already expressed concerns about the status of traditional patrolling points (PPs) within the buffer zones, also called ‘no-patrol zones’, with some areas no longer accessible to Indian patrols.
Therefore, before exploring a boundary delimitation exercise in the India-China border areas, it will be prudent for Delhi and Beijing to first resolve the issue of buffer zones. Any talk of an “early harvest” at this point can be risky as China can lay its claims on these large tracts of land, some of which extend up to 10 kilometers.
During the 96-hour India-Pakistan conflict in May, known as Operation Sindoor, the world witnessed extensive support from China to Pakistan, including a wide range of military assistance. Despite this, India has decided to adopt a more conciliatory approach towards China. New Delhi has come to understand that maintaining a continually antagonistic relationship with Beijing could have detrimental effects on both India’s economy and its foreign policy.
On the other side of the border meantime, the bonhomie flowed in excess. During Wang Yi’s visit to Pakistan on August 21, Pakistan and China committed to enhancing economic cooperation and investment under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Before reaching Islamabad, Wang also conducted a trilateral dialogue involving Pakistan and Afghanistan in Kabul on August 20; however, India, the largest neighbouring country in the subcontinent, was noticeably absent from these discussions.
Clearly, it is not Trump’s tariffs but India’s own recognition that becoming isolated in its neighbourhood and depending on some of its western partners is not an option. Perhaps Prime Minister Modi will raise the issue of China’s military support to Pakistan when he meets with President Xi on August 31 in Tianjin on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. To be avoided this time is falling into China’s old trap of putting the boundary question on the back-burner while continuing to do business as usual with India.
Nayanima Basu is a journalist who writes on issues of foreign policy and is the author of “The Fall of Kabul: Despatches from Chaos”.
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