After 24 Rounds of Talks, India-China Finally Edge Towards Quiet De-escalation

Jaishankar said that normalcy of India-China ties would rest on peace and stability on the LAC, writes Manoj Joshi.

Last week’s meetings between Jaishankar and Wang, as well as that between the visiting Chinese minister with his Special Representative counterpart Ajit Doval, have led to a number of decisions on the normalisation of ties.

(Image: The Quint/Aroop Mishra)

At the very outset of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to New Delhi last week, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reiterated that normalcy of India-China ties would rest on peace and stability on the Line of Actual Control and that the “process of “de-escalation” forces must “move forward”.

Ever since the 2020 crisis, Jaishankar has been emphasising the need for achieving status quo ante as of April 2020 which would involve the disengagement, de-induction and de-escalation of the additional forces that had been brought in to the border region by China, followed by India.

Talks, Trade and a Thaw: Diplomatic Reset in Motion

The reality is, however, that after the agreement on restoring Indian patrolling rights in the Depsang Bulge and the Charding-Ninglung Nala area last October, there has been no forward movement in terms of de-induction and de-escalation, though there has been disengagement of forces at the six so-called friction points on the LAC. In addition, both sides have been involved in an intense dialogue to normalise the situation. The Kailash-Mansarovar yatra has been resumed and the Indian embassy has eased visa restrictions on Chinese travelling to India.

Last week’s meetings between Jaishankar and Wang, as well as that between the visiting Chinese minister with his Special Representative counterpart Ajit Doval, have led to a number of decisions on the normalisation of ties such as the resumption of border trade, co-operation on trans-border rivers, facilitating trade and investment flows, resumption of direct flights and easing of visa processes.

A set of agreements also point to the steps the two sides will take to renew diplomatic engagement and co-operation in the context of their military and strategic challenges.

But in all this, the big question is: What is the actual situation along the Line of Actual Control that marks the Sino-Indian border?

The 2020 crisis was about the PLA establishing blockades at six places along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. These were at places, described as “friction points” by India, where there was an overlap of border claims and where as per agreement, both the PLA and the Indian Army patrolled. In addition, the Chinese brought down some 30,000 troops from Xinjiang to western Tibet and massed them near the Indian border. By not informing the Indian side of this movement, they violated the 1996 agreement between the two sides.

India’s Playbook: Diplomacy, Defence and Digital Pushback

There is little doubt that the Chinese actions had been aimed at coercing India for a variety of reasons that ranged from the development of infrastructure along the LAC that reduced Chinese dominance, to the growing closeness in India-US relationship. New Delhi carefully calibrated its response to match the Chinese in terms of its border deployments, making it clear that it was not keen on military action to deal with the situation.

Instead, it took recourse to patient diplomacy along with a number of other actions like blocking Chinese apps and Chinese investment in India that stressed the importance of restoring the situation as it existed before the Chinese moves of 2020.

But by moving to occupy the Kailash heights overlooking the Chinese deployments in Spanggur Tso at the end of August 2020, India also signalled that it was ready to militarily defend its border, if needed.

The Chinese side soon enough realised that they had over-reached and there was need to immediately contain the situation. Within two weeks of the Galwan clash, talks between the India and China succeeded in getting the two sides to pull back 1.5km each from the site of the clash, leaving the area thus vacated as a “no patrolling zone.”

Over the next two years, India was able to systematically persuade the Chinese side to lift their blockades in three other places—the area of Pangong Tso, the Gogra Post and the Gogra-Hot Springs area—and replace them with no patrolling zones. Thereafter negotiations stalled for more than a year and finally, there was a breakthrough in 2024, when the Chinese agreed to allow India patrolling rights in the remaining two areas—the Depsang Bulge and the Charding-Ninglung Nala area.

However, there was no follow-up movement to in this disengagement process and there has been no de-induction and de-escalation.

The four areas of disengagement have left no-patrol zones, the bulk of whose area falls on the Indian side of the LAC. These were meant to be temporary and there is need to restore the situation there to the pre-2020 status.

Finally, now the two sides are readying to discuss de-escalation and de-induction. According to the decisions taken at last week’s 24th round of the Special Representatives meeting, the two sides will now “discuss de-escalation, beginning with the principles and modalities thereof.”

Why De-escalation Won’t Be Easy

This will not be a simple exercise of the withdrawal of the additional forces that were brought up by both sides. Given the terrain and infrastructure on the border, pulling back Chinese troops 100 kms from the LAC is quite different from doing so for the Indian side. It would take the Chinese a couple of hours to return to the frontline, where it could take Indian forces an entire day.

According to reports, while several of the Chinese formations have pulled back over 100 kms, many still remain deployed forward with the PLA’s border defence regiments. India remains committed to matching deployments, which leaves the LAC situation in a stable but tense situation.

Another major decision that the two sides took on border management was the extension of the military-to-military talks at the Senior Commander level to the Eastern and Middle Sectors as well. It may be noted that the heavy lifting for the drawing down the eastern Ladakh problem was done through talks between the Indian XIV Corps Commander and the Chinese commander of the South Xinjiang Military District at Chushul and Moldo adjacent to the Pangong and Spanggur lakes. The military commanders had held 21 rounds of talks since June 2020, the last round in February 2024.

There have also been decisions taken to advance India-China border negotiations which have been winding through the 24 rounds of talks between the two Special Representatives. One is the notion of the “early harvest” that would see the delimitation of the boundary at the one place where there are not too many differences—the Sikkim-Tibet border.

Importantly, the two sides have also reiterated their support for the far-reaching 2005 Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question. The task of the two Special Representatives was to flesh this out, but it has now been 20 years, and they are still discussing the issue, an indicator that the India-China border issue could still be some distance from a final settlement.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint  neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)