Senior officials of India and China are expected to meet in Beijing later this month as the two neighbors look to reset relations that have been in a state of deep freeze since June 2020 when their soldiers engaged in a bloody clash and a prolonged eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along their disputed border in Ladakh.
The upcoming meeting in Beijing follows the agreement on patrolling arrangements along the disputed border in Eastern Ladakh. India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told journalists in New Delhi on October 21 that “Agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020.”
The Beijing meeting is therefore significant.
The Indian and Chinese national security advisors have to begin the process of repairing bilateral strategic trust. They also have to chart a fresh blueprint for stabilizing their tense border and ensuring equilibrium, badly shattered by the deadly Galwan clash in June 2020 in the Himalayan region of Eastern Ladakh. This will be their first meeting to discuss unsettled boundary issues in five years.
The Sino-Indian face-off at Galwan on the night of June 14-15, 2020, was the deadliest between the two countries in decades. Both sides suffered casualties. Relations frayed thereafter. There was a sharp downslide in people-to-people ties with a decline in air links and travel between the two countries. India banned dozens of Chinese companies, including ByteDance, the firm behind the popular short-video app TikTok, from operating in India.
India and China share a 4,000-kilometer-long undemarcated border that has been a source of friction for decades. It led to a brief but bloody war in 1962 and several face-offs since. However, a series of pacts signed between 1993 and 2013 resulted in largely peaceful ties. This truce was broken when China moved tens of thousands of troops and weaponry to the border in Eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, catching New Delhi by surprise. While caught off guard, India quickly mobilized forces to match the numbers deployed by China.
Following the October 2024 announcement, India and China disengaged their troops, i.e. they were withdrawn from their eyeball-to-eyeball positions. A meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping followed on the sidelines of the BRICS summit at Kazan. This was their first bilateral dialogue since 2019.
“The two sides agreed on holding talks between their foreign ministers and officials at various levels to bring the relationship back to sound and steady development at an early date,” a Chinese readout of the talks said. The foreign and defense ministers of the two countries also met subsequently.
Briefing reporters in Kazan on October 23, Misri said that Modi and Xi had agreed that by showing “mutual respect for each other’s sensitivities, interests, concerns and aspirations, the two countries can have a peaceful, stable and beneficial bilateral relationship.”
The first clue that a possible thaw was in the offing came in an interview by Prime Minister Modi with Newsweek in April this year. The posting of a new Chinese Ambassador Xu Feihong in New Delhi in May 2024, 18 months after his predecessor left the Indian capital was also seen as a step toward unfreezing of ties.
Since he assumed official duties, Xu has used his X account, formerly Twitter, to reach out to the Indian public whose opinion had turned sharply against China after the Galwan clash. Xu and the Chinese embassy in New Delhi have also posted information regarding the travel of small groups of Indians to China, sponsored by the embassy.
Another hint of India and China being close to working out a solution came in August when the Indian foreign ministry statement said after talks between diplomats that the dialogue had been “forward looking.” This came amid a toning down of aggressive rhetoric from the Chinese media, largely viewed as government-backed and reflecting official views.
Analysts have described the breakthrough as a “tactical achievement.”
However, the reasons behind the breakthrough are as unclear as the causes for the sudden Chinese mobilization in 2020.
Some speculate that India’s growing proximity to the U.S. in recent years and its development of deeper linkages with like-minded countries like the members of Quad to balance China could have been the trigger.
Another reason for China’s aggression is its ambition to head the global order, which it cannot do unless it dominates Asia. In this context, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has pointed out that with both India and China harboring ambitions to make their presence felt in the world, and rising together, it has led to a complex situation.
Why did the breakthrough in relations happen now?
One reason is that Indian industry has been quietly pushing for the normalization of ties given that many critical components and products are imported from China. Earlier this year, India’s Economic Survey 2023-24, which is a government document laying out the state of the economy, spoke of the economic imperative for getting Sino-Indian ties back on track.
Another reason being put forth by analysts is that China has understood that it cannot force India to make choices or capitulate under duress. Added to this are the uncertainties prevailing in the world, including the reelection of Donald Trump in the United States and his threats to place punitive tariffs across imports into the U.S. This could be another plausible explanation for why India and China are looking to end their tensions.
Now that the two countries have taken the first step toward normalization of ties, the question is what’s next?
In his statement to the Indian parliament last week, Jaishankar said that with the completion of disengagement, India and China got the space to look at other elements of their relationship keeping “national security interests first and foremost.” This could mean that economic interests will be predicated on security-related matters.
In the immediate future, the two countries will need to carry out two more steps — de-escalation and de-induction of troops. The first refers to moving troops back (perhaps by 3 to 7 kilometers) to minimize the possibility of conflict. De-induction refers to an agreement between the two sides to pull the amassed personnel and heavy weaponry back by some 100 kilometers. This is expected to take several rounds of talks by senior army commanders backed, of course, by political direction.
Once these are accomplished, the two countries will need to work out a fresh set of confidence building measures, given that the ones in place prior to the Galwan clash were summarily disregarded by China in 2020. These measures will have to be strictly implemented, backed by verification methods as India cannot afford to be caught napping again.
These measures could take years to draw up, which means India will have to continue to closely monitor its China border.
The two sides have agreed to coordinated patrols to avoid tensions. China has also sought patrolling rights in Arunachal Pradesh in the east. This is something that India will need to consider cautiously given China’s claim over all of Arunachal Pradesh which it calls “South Tibet.” The particular area in question is Yangste, which has seen consistent attempts of transgression by the Chinese and was also the scene of a scuffle in 2022. Just as China claims all of Arunachal Pradesh that India administers, New Delhi says the Aksai Chin area in Kashmir that China has occupied since 1962 is part of its territory. India doesn’t have any patrolling rights in this area.
On the economic side, India will need to quickly scale up efforts to de-risk its economy from its current levels of exposure to China. That is a tough ask as India’s trade in 2023 touched $115.82 billion with a trade deficit of almost $100 billion, in Beijing’s favor.
India can be expected to speedily tie up plans to boost trade and supply chain initiatives with Quad partners Australia and Japan. There are some free trade pacts in the offing that need to be concluded quickly. Indian industry should also look to source products and components from within the country and set up and promote domestic supply chains. An economically strong India will be attractive for investors looking at the China+1 alternative. It will give India resources and the confidence to build up its national capacities vis a vis China.