India, China plan new confidence building measures to avert flashpoints along disputed boundary

New Delhi: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping set to meet soon, India and China are likely to work out next week a new set of confidence building measures (CBMs) to maintain peace and tranquillity along the disputed boundary between the two nations, drawing lessons from the 2020-2024 military stand-off.

New Delhi will also ask Beijing to speed up the withdrawal of nearly 100,000 additional troops the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had deployed in the rear areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) during the military stand-off in eastern Ladakh from April-May 2020 to October 2024.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for the 24^th round of boundary negotiations in New Delhi on Monday. Doval and Wang, the current special representatives of New Delhi and Beijing for boundary negotiations, had held the last round of talks in Beijing on December 18, 2024, a few weeks after Modi and Xi met at Kazan in Russia and announced the end of the four-and-a-half-year-long

Military stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

Doval and Wang will discuss a new set of measures for effective border management and for sustaining peace and tranquillity along the disputed India-China boundary. They will set the stage for the Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit at Tianjin in northern China from August 31 to September 1. The two leaders may formally announce the new CBMs to be discussed and finalised by the special representatives, according to the sources in New Delhi.  

Ever since Beijing attempted to change the status quo along the India-China LAC in eastern Ladakh by deploying a large number of troops of the Chinese PLA close to the de facto boundary between the two nations in April-May 2020, New Delhi has been accusing the neighbouring communist country of flouting the 1993 and 1996 bilateral agreements and all other Confidence Building Measures the two sides had put in place to maintain peace and tranquillity along the LAC till the boundary dispute could be resolved.

The 1993 and 1996 agreements required both sides to refrain from amassing large numbers of troops in the border areas, to strictly abide by and respect the LAC, and to avoid taking any unilateral action to alter it. But, in the wake of the aggressive moves by China, India also deployed additional troops along the LAC, resulting in the stand-off, which came to its end after the deal on patrolling in Depsang and Demchok was clinched in October 2024.

During the 23^rd round of talks in Beijing on December 18, 2024, Doval and Wang agreed to further refine the management and control rules along the LAC, strengthen the CBMs, and achieve sustainable peace and tranquillity on the border.

The diplomats of the two sides met on March 25 in Beijing and on July 23 in New Delhi to discuss ways to advance effective border management by strengthening relevant diplomatic and military CBMs.

The special representatives of India and China had started talks to resolve the boundary dispute in 2003. They had reached an agreement in 2005 on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Question. The process remained stalled for five years during the military stand-off in eastern Ladakh.

 They restarted negotiations after the end of the stand-off in October 2024.