India, China to start with easier tasks in boundary talks, before moving on to difficult ones

India in the past rejected China's offers for 'early harvest' deals as Article III of 2005 agreement says boundary settlement should be final, covering all sectors

New Delhi: India and China on Wednesday agreed to “inject more vitality” into the negotiations to resolve the boundary dispute and to chalk out soon a roadmap toward arriving at a package solution, beginning with the easy steps and then moving on to taking up the difficult issues.

The Special Representatives of New Delhi and Beijing for boundary negotiations – India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – met in the capital of the communist country. They held the 23rd round of boundary negotiations, thus restarting a process that remained stalled for five years after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s aggressive moves along the Line of Actual Control and the Indian Army’s counter-deployment in April-May 2020 led to a military stand-off in eastern Ladakh.

“The two sides reiterated that they would seek a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable package of solutions to the border issue in accordance with the political guiding principles reached in 2005,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government said in a press release issued after the meeting between Doval and Wang in Beijing. “At the same time,” it added, “in the spirit of starting with the easy and then moving on to the difficult, and proceeding step by step, they would formulate a roadmap for the next step of work.”

The special representatives reiterated the importance of maintaining a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship while seeking a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable framework for the settlement of the boundary question, and resolved to inject more vitality into this process, according to the press release issued in New Delhi by the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India.

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.

Article III of the 2005 agreement says both sides should, in the spirit of mutual respect and mutual understanding, make meaningful and mutually acceptable adjustments to their respective positions on the boundary question so as to arrive at a package settlement to the boundary question. It also says that the boundary settlement must be final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary.

Beijing had a few years back pressed New Delhi to agree on an “early harvest” deal, resolving the boundary disputes in the sectors where it would be easier to settle the row than the more contentious stretches. China’s proposal had been steadfastly rejected by India then.

New Delhi remained mum on Beijing’s claim on Wednesday that Doval agreed with Wang to start with the easy issues in the boundary negotiations and then to move on to the difficult ones.

Doval and Wang had held the 22nd round of boundary negotiations on December 21, 2019, just a few months before the military stand-off had started along the LAC. The negotiations remained stalled as the bilateral relations nosedived over the past four-and-a-half years.

The October 21 deal between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA on patrolling arrangements in the Depsang and Demchok areas in eastern Ladakh marked the end of the process of disengagement of frontline troops along the LAC.

Two days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had held their first bilateral meeting in five years on the sideline of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia. They had agreed that the special representatives would restart the boundary negotiations.

Doval and Wang on Wednesday underlined the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas to promote the overall development of the India-China bilateral relationship, according to the press release issued by the MEA in New Delhi.

They emphasised the need to ensure peaceful conditions on the ground so that issues on the border do not hold back the normal development of bilateral relations. “Drawing on the learnings from the events of 2020, they discussed various measures to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border and advance effective border management. They decided to use, coordinate, and guide the relevant diplomatic and military mechanisms towards this purpose,” the MEA states in its press release.

The two special representatives exchanged views on bilateral, regional, and global issues of mutual interest. They provided positive directions for cross-border cooperation and exchanges, including the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, data sharing on trans-border rivers, and border trade. They agreed on the salience of stable, predictable, and amicable India-China relations for regional and global peace and prosperity.

Apart from meeting Wang, Doval also called on Han Zheng, vice president of China.