In diplomacy, every word and phrase matters. This is especially true when two countries are negotiating a disputed border. So, the appearance of a phrase “early and substantial harvest on boundary delimitation” in an eight-point joint China-India statement — the first in 11 years — after the 25th round of talks between the special representatives (SR) is fraught with strategic implications.

The phrase “early harvest” has been around for over a decade, but the usage of “substantial” is, well, substantial, even though all its implications are not yet clear. This comes on the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first visit to New Delhi since 2019 and amidst moves by the two sides to step up their economic and investment ties.

“Early harvest” made its first appearance in a Chinese note in the wake of the 2017 Doklam crisis which said that India and China had been discussing the possibility of making the border in Sikkim an “early harvest”. The Sikkim-Tibet border had been delimited and demarcated by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890. Both sides agree with the border alignment here, though India has differences on the trijunction at Doklam.

On the eve of the Mamallapuram summit in August 2019, the Chinese said that they had sent some “early harvest” proposals.........

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