China pushes India again for fresh border control code

China has reiterated its proposal for a Code of Conduct for Border Control with India, ahead of a meeting between the Special Representatives of the two countries.

Beijing is likely to push New Delhi hard on agreeing to a new code of conduct when India’s Special Representative for boundary negotiation, Ajit Doval, meets his counterpart and China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi later this month or early next month.

The meeting in Beijing is likely to see the resumption of negotiations on the boundary issue after a year-long hiatus, which saw a new government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking office in New Delhi.

The proposed meet is one of the several engagements New Delhi and Beijing have lined up to set the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in May.

In a recent interview to Deccan Herald, China’s ambassador to India, Le Yucheng, had said the Code of Conduct for Border Patrol was being “discussed by both sides right now”.

Sources in New Delhi said India was not averse to discussing a new document to ensure peace and tranquillity along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, but would do so only after ensuring that its sovereign right to develop infrastructure on its territory remained protected.

China first mooted the proposal a bilateral Code of Conduct on Border Control during Yang’s meeting with Doval’s predecessor Shiv Shankar Menon in New Delhi in February 2014. Beijing’s proposal surprised New Delhi, as it came just five months after the two countries signed the Border Defence Cooperation Agreem­ent (BD­CA)—a new mech­anism to prevent occa­sional flashpoints along the LAC from turning into major stand-offs.

The BDCA was inked during the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Beijing in October 2013, just a few months after an incursion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and paramilitary People’s Armed Police Force at Depsang Bulge in Ladakh triggered a three-week-long stand-off along the western sector of the LAC in April-May 2013.