India seen as telling China to move on both troops and border talks

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's remarks to Chinese counterpart show positivity and de-escalation push

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart Admiral Dong Jun in Qingdao on Thursday that border management would help resolve the complex issues surrounding the India-China dispute.

 

Singh’s remarks included the words “permanent solution of border demarcation by rejuvenating the established mechanism on the issue”, as mentioned in a media statement issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in New Delhi. 

 

The comments, according to Indian foreign policy and military analysts, indicate two things. One, a positive signal from the Indian government, and two, the push for de-escalation and de-induction along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that has been heavily militarised over the past five years.  

 

Speaking to Dong on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers’ meeting, Singh called for bridging the trust deficit created after the Galwan River valley clash in 2020, “by taking action on ground”. 

 

The hand-to-hand combat killed at least 24 Indian and Chinese soldiers, and froze the bilateral relationship until a thaw that followed a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Brics summit in Russia in October.   

 

India and China have agreed to continue discussions at various levels to achieve progress on issues related to disengagement, de-escalation, border management and “eventually de-limitation through existing mechanisms”, the MoD statement said. 

 

“He (Singh) was trying to convey that it is important to move ahead,” Srikanth Kondapalli, professor, China studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said. 

 

“The defence minister also spoke from the perspective of the armed forces on the ground.”

 

The remarks reflect an aspiration for a desirable outcome for both countries, Kondapalli said, adding that not just bilaterally, the two Asian giants have not been able to cooperate on addressing major international issues such as wars and geopolitics in these five years. “Chinese are mindful of that, too.”

 

Lieutenant General Raj Shukla (retired) said, “India’s position also is that the border issue can only be resolved if the associated attributes, such as disengagement, de-escalation and de-induction are addressed collectively, without disadvantaging either side.” 

 

While disengagement has happened to an extent and joint patrolling has resumed in many spots, a lot of troops and defence equipment remain. At the height of tensions after the clash, troops had moved to the LAC in their thousands, often positioned in close proximity. 

 

Much of the equipment gathered there has yet to be removed and many troops have not gone back to their bases, Kondapalli said.

 

Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s China visit in 1988 and meeting with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping -- seen as an ice-breaker after a diplomatic freeze triggered by the 1962 war -- was also when a mechanism of border management was established. It has been disrupted by skirmishes since 2017.  

 

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met Chinese Foreign Minister and politburo member of the Communist Party of China Wang Yi in Beijing earlier last week. Wang is expected to visit India later this year for the special representatives’ talk with Doval.

 

Other than the SR mechanism, multiple rounds of discussions at different diplomatic and military levels have taken place between India and China over the years.  

 

“Yet, the border is only one aspect of the larger Sino-Indian challenge. What we need to address in speed and scale is the growing technological disparity, the asymmetry in domains like space and artificial intelligence, as also in the maritime sphere,” Shukla said.

 

“The surest way to secure peace with China is by creating solid deterrence,” Shukla, who was the general officer commanding-in-chief of the Indian Army training command at the time of the Galwan clash, said.

 

He also pointed to problems within the Chinese military, citing the reported purge of a large number of generals in the People’s Liberation Army. 

 

“Many of its capacities are exaggerated through cognitive warfare.”