Special Representatives of India, China to hold talks in Beijing on December 18

Beijing: The Special Representatives (SRs) of India and China on border issues will meet on Wednesday in Beijing to discuss steps toward normalising bilateral relations. This comes after the October 21 agreement aimed at disengaging troops in eastern Ladakh. India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, will hold the 23rd meeting of the Special Representatives for the China-India Boundary Question on December 18, as confirmed by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian.

Doval is expected to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday for the crucial talks. These discussions, after a five-year hiatus, are seen as vital for advancing the resolution of the ongoing border tensions between the two countries, which share a 3,488-kilometre-long border.

The SRs mechanism, formed in 2003, has met 22 times to address the boundary dispute, although progress has been slow. The last meeting took place in 2019, and the meetings have largely served as a tool for managing tensions rather than resolving the core dispute. Relations between India and China have been tense since 2020, when China’s military build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) triggered one of the longest standoffs in recent history.

Following weeks of negotiations, the October agreement aimed to address issues that arose from the 2020 tensions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed the disengagement agreement during a meeting in Kazan on October 24.