Top Chinese and Indian officials to discuss Himalayan border dispute this week

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is to host India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval in Beijing to discuss the nations’ Himalayan border dispute on Wednesday, the ministry said on Monday – the latest sign of improved ties following an agreement on patrolling the boundary.

Foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the meeting would be the 23rd under the “special representatives dialogue” mechanism – but the first since 2019 – and would cover “the consensus reached between China and India”.

On the eve of a meeting in October between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Beijing and New Delhi agreed to disengage their patrolling troops at the disputed border, a diplomatic breakthrough that is expected to end the high-altitude stand-off since a deadly skirmish four years ago.

In addition to using the dialogue “to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border area and to seek a fair and reasonable solution”, according to the Chinese readout of that meeting, Xi and Modi also agreed to push for more engagement between officials “at all levels” so as to “promote early return of relations between the two countries to the track of stable development”.

China and India have never agreed on their border demarcation. Since a short but bloody war over the issue in 1962, the two nations have been divided by a 3,200km (1,990-mile) Line of Actual Control (LAC) – though they have not even been able to agree on precisely where that lies.