India announced on Monday it has reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a key breakthrough in a four-year-old military standoff that raised the possibility of a meeting between leaders of the two countries on the margins of the Brics Summit in Russia.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri gave details of the agreement at a media briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia during October 22-23. Subsequently, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said the two sides have gone back to the situation that existed on the LAC in 2020, and the disengagement process with China “has been completed”.
There was no official word from the Chinese side on the agreement, which Jaishankar described as a “good” and “positive” development produced by very patient and persevering diplomacy. Misri said the agreement was the outcome of several rounds of discussions through diplomatic and military channels over several weeks. The two sides will now take the “next steps on this”, he said.
“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,” Misri added.
Speaking thereafter at the NDTV World Summit, Jaishankar said: “We reached an agreement on patrolling. With that…we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020, and…the disengagement process with China, you can say, has been completed.”
The development raised the possibility of a meeting between Modi and President Xi Jinping, who are both attending the Brics Summit in the Russian city of Kazan, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. The Indian and Chinese sides did not officially provide details of bilateral meetings planned by the two leaders.
The people described Monday’s announcement as a positive step forward and said much will depend on the outcome of a possible meeting between Modi and Xi, who last interacted formally on the margins of the G20 Summit in Indonesia in November 2022.
The standoff on the LAC began with a skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops on the banks of Pangong Lake in May 2020. A brutal clash at Galwan Valley in June 2020 that killed 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops – the first fatalities on the LAC in 45 years – took bilateral ties to the lowest point since the 1962 border war. As the face-off entered its fifth year, Jaishankar maintained that the overall relationship couldn’t be normalised without peace and tranquillity on the border.
Earlier talks through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China border affairs, which involved diplomats, and senior military commanders led to the withdrawal of frontline forces from the north and south banks of Pangong Lake, Gogra and Hot Spring. The two remaining “friction points” were Depsang and Demchok, considered more strategic in military terms as the Chinese side has blocked Indian access to key patrolling points.
Misri, who was India’s envoy to Beijing when the face-off began, acknowledged that discussions through diplomatic and military channels resulted in the “resolution of standoffs at various locations”, and there were a “few locations where the standoff had not been resolved”.
He added that the agreement on patrolling arrangements is “leading to disengagement and eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020”.
Jaishankar said details of the agreement will emerge in due course. Both sides had blocked access to patrolling points since 2020 and the understanding is that “we will be able to do the patrolling which we were doing in 2020”, he said.
“At various points of time, people almost gave up…We have always maintained that, on the one hand, we had to obviously do the counter-deployments, but side by side, we have been negotiating…since September 2020, when I met my counterpart, Mr Wang Yi, in Moscow,” he added.
Both sides have reached an understanding on “observing the sanctity of the LAC”, and this “creates a basis” for returning to the peace and tranquillity that existed before 2020, Jaishankar said.
“That was our major concern, because we always said that if you disturb the peace and tranquillity, how do you expect the rest of the relationship to go forward…The understanding was reached only today. So, I think we have to see what the consequences of that are,” he said.
Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based security expert, said India and China will now have to focus on the more complicated issue of rebuilding the trust that had been eroded by the standoff on the LAC, which saw both sides arraying close to 60,000 troops each in the Ladakh sector.
“The agreement on patrolling is a welcome development, though we have to see how it is implemented on the ground. This being the most protracted border stand-off between the two countries during peacetime, regaining trust won’t be easy. Both militaries will have to deal with mutual animosities among troops deployed on the ground. Moreover, its overall impact on bilateral dynamics won’t be evident immediately, Patil said.
“Nonetheless, this agreement demonstrates that if willing, India and China can agree to mend fences,” he said.
