KIRAN SHARMA
NEW DELHI — India and China are committed to finding “a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” framework to settle their longstanding border dispute, New Delhi and Beijing said separately Wednesday, after top officials held a formal meeting on the issue in Beijing for the first time in five years.
The meeting between Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi follows a landmark agreement in October on patrolling arrangements along the shared Himalayan border, which paved the way for resolving a standoff in area’s eastern Ladakh region.
India and China share an almost 3,500-kilometer border, known as the Line of Actual Control. The area mostly has no demarcation and has been a source of tension for decades between the countries, including a brief one-month war in 1962. Most recently, tensions were at a fever pitch following clashes in June 2020 that led to the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
That incident was the first deadly confrontation between the two nations in 45 years.
Just days after the October patrolling agreement was announced, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in Russia, their first formal meeting in five years. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said both leaders had instructed special representatives to meet at an early date and to continue efforts in resolving the border issue.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the representatives “reiterated the importance of maintaining a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship while seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for settlement of the boundary question,” an Indian government statement said.
The meeting was the 23rd round of talks following the 2003 establishment of a dialogue on the border issue. They last met in New Delhi in December 2019.
“Drawing on the learnings from the events of 2020, they discussed various measures to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border and advance effective border management,” the Indian statement said.
Resumption of access by Indian pilgrims to a holy site in Tibet, data sharing on trans-border rivers and border trade were also discussed.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said the talks were held in a positive and constructive manner.
“The two sides assessed the border situation and agreed to further refine the management and control rules in the border area, strengthen the building of confidence-building measures, and achieve sustainable peace and tranquility on the border,” it added.
The countries agreed to hold another round of meetings in India next year, the Chinese statement said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry also quoted Wang as saying that the meeting was “a timely and powerful measure” to implement the consensus reached by the leaders at the BRICS summit.
“It is hard-won and worth cherishing,” he said, adding that the two sides should “put the border issue in an appropriate position” in bilateral ties and push China-India relations “back on the track of healthy and stable development as soon as possible.”
On Wednesday, Doval also met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, who said the two sides should maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges and foster political mutual trust, according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.
source : asia.nikkei