On 25 August, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks on the boundary question in Beijing.

The two sides agreed on an eight-point consensus, aimed at maintaining peace along the border and advancing negotiations towards a mutually acceptable settlement.

The next round is scheduled to be held in India next year.

The meeting offers a revealing snapshot of the relationship between Asia’s two rising giants. Its significance may lie less in any breakthrough than in what it says about the relationship itself.

India and China are unlikely to stop talking. They are equally unlikely, for the foreseeable future, to stop competing.

There will be negotiations, summits and gestures of conciliation, interspersed with the occasional bouts of saber-rattling. Yet neither appears willing to cross the threshold into a major war – or to make the fundamental concessions that a comprehensive settlement would require.

The more interesting question is when and on what terms India and China will finally discover an equilibrium that neither regards as ideal, but both regard as preferable to endless confrontation.

The more interesting question is when and on what terms India and China will finally discover an equilibrium that neither regards as ideal, but both regard as preferable to endless confrontation.

The more likely objective is neither peace nor war, but the management of an increasingly consequential rivalry: keep the doors open, contain escalation and preserve strategic room for manoeuvre.

That may be the defining paradox of the relationship between them.

Their differences are serious and structural.

The boundary dispute remains unresolved; military forces continue to face each other across the Himalayas; China regards India’s growing strategic relationship with the United States with suspicion; and India remains deeply concerned about China’s expanding influence across its neighbourhood.

Yet both sides also understand the enormous costs of allowing competition to become war. The result is an uneasy combination of confrontation and restraint.

Even the much-speculated possibility of “war between two nuclear powers” has, in reality, remained tightly........

© Daily Times