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India, China Take Small Step Forward Toward Border Settlement

At the recent special representatives talks in Beijing, the two sides agreed to work on identifying less contentious sections of their disputed border.

Indian and Chinese delegations at the 25th Meeting of Special Representatives on the India-China Boundary Question held in Beijing, China, on Aug. 25, 2026.

Top officials of India and China have agreed to work on identifying less contentious sections of their contested border for delimitation as part of a broader process toward resolving their longstanding boundary dispute.

A special group of negotiators will identify these less disputed parts of the border and delimit them, a joint statement released on August 26 said. The statement came a day after India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing for talks. Doval and Wang are the designated special representatives of their two countries for the boundary talks mechanism, which was established in 2003 to address the border dispute.

At the talks in Beijing, India and China also agreed to two new military hotlines in the eastern and middle sections of their border and two new meeting points for military commander-level interactions to immediately deal with any tensions that arise along their 3,500 km-long border. Officials of the two countries will meet next month to discuss issues related to trans-border rivers as they look to take their relationship forward after ties sank to a six-decade low during the June 2020 Galwan clash.

“The two sides agreed that any situation on the ground would be addressed promptly through existing diplomatic and military channels,” the statement, which listed eight outcomes, said. The emphasis was on stabilizing the border and ensuring that any tensions that surface are defused before they impact the larger relationship.

“The two sides discussed ways to improve understanding of LAC [Line of Actual Control, the de facto border] in appropriate areas, for better border management,” it said. This is a key outcome given that differing perceptions of where the border lies have been the principal source of friction between the countries.

There was agreement on maintaining peace and tranquility along the border and on creating “an atmosphere for healthy and steady development of bilateral relations,” the joint statement said. India has stated multiple times that peace on the border was a pre-requisite for progress in other areas of the China-India bilateral relationship, such as economic engagement.

The two countries said they were committed to finding a solution to their vexed boundary problem based on a 2005 pact that says the final agreement would be a “package settlement” that would cover the entire border – the western, middle, and eastern sections. The 2005 pact also provides for both countries to “safeguard due interests of their settled populations in the border areas.”

India has been particularly keen that the solution to border tensions with China be a comprehensive one, covering the entire stretch of the border rather than selected areas seen as easier to resolve. Moreover, some of these areas with easier resolution prospects are also ones where India holds a military advantage vis-a-vis China.

The joint statement was issued a day after the two countries put out separate readouts of their talks, which was taken as a sign that the two countries were far apart on key issues. The release of the joint statement has set at rest doubts that differences had outweighed points of agreement.

The China-India talks come against the backdrop of an increasingly unstable world order where the United States is seen as an inward-looking and unreliable partner. Previously, India had perceived the U.S. as a hedge against China’s growing assertiveness in Asia. India views China as its principal long-term adversary. However, New Delhi has been at the receiving end of Donald Trump’s tariffs and other punitive measures over the past year. Consequently, India is adopting an “America Plus” strategy that includes outreach to countries and groups like Japan, the European Union, Russia and China, said security affairs analyst C. Raja Mohan, in an article in the Foreign Affairs magazine.

C. Uday Bhaskar, a retired commodore of the Indian Navy and currently director at the........

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