India-China border row: Top govt officials meet in Delhi, discuss approach for next meet with China

With senior military commanders of India and China likely to restart talks to resolve the stand-off in eastern Ladakh, a government panel of the top bureaucrats along with military and intelligence officials met in South Block here on Friday.

The group, informally called the "China Study Group’, discussed New Delhi’s approach for the forthcoming talks between the senior commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA.

India’s ambassador to China Vikram Misri also arrived in New Delhi for consultation, as the bilateral relations hit a new low over the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) -- the de facto boundary between the two nations in the western sector -- that has lasted for over 4 months. He is expected to brief Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval about his interactions with senior diplomats of the Chinese government and officials of the Communist Party of China in Beijing over the past few weeks.

Read: China says Indian Army must withdraw troops from Pangong Tso to make Jaishankar-Wang consensus work

General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 14 Corps of the Indian Army Lt. Gen. Harinder Singh and Maj Gen Liu Lin of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are likely to hold a meeting at the Chushul-Moldo point on the LAC soon. This will be the sixth meeting between the senior military commanders of the two nations after the stand-off started along the LAC early May. The two haven't met after the last meeting on August 2

The talks were stalled as the Chinese PLA declined to adhere to the process it mutually agreed to with the Indian Army for pulling back soldiers from the face-off scenes along the LAC.

When External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a meeting on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conclave in Moscow on September 10, they agreed on restarting talks between the senior military commanders as well as between the senior diplomats to resolve the stand-off.

Also read: S Jaishankar, Wang Yi agree on 5 points to resolve stand-off along India-China disputed boundary

Even as more than a week passed has since Jaishankar and Wang met in Moscow and reached a five-point consensus to resolve the stand-off, the proposed sixth round of talks between Lt Gen Singh and Maj Gen Liu could not be scheduled so far. A source in New Delhi, however, told DH on Friday that efforts were on to hold the meeting between the senior military commanders soon.

Beijing had, earlier this week, put on New Delhi the onus of implementing the consensus reached during the Jaishankar-Wang meeting to resolve the stand-off.

The “most urgent task” is for the Indian Army to “correct its wrongdoing” in China-India border areas, “disengage” from the points of the face-off with the Chinese PLA “as soon as possible” and take “concrete actions” to defuse tension, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the communist country’s government, said on Wednesday.

India on the other hand asked China on Thursday to “strictly respect and observe” the LAC and not make further attempts to unilaterally change the status quo.