Border peace enabling normalisation of Sino-Indian ties, says India; focus on delimitation, cross-border cooperation

NEW DELHI: India and China expressed satisfaction Thursday over the progress made in maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas, with the former saying this has enabled progress towards gradual normalization of bilateral relations. The 2 sides held another round of “constructive and forward-looking" diplomatic talks on the border situation – the first since July, 2025 – and also discussed issues related to boundary delimitation, consistent with the understanding reached last year in Special Representatives’ (SR) talks on the boundary question.In the SR dialogue last year in August, NSA Ajit Doval and foreign minister Wang Yi had agreed to set up an expert group to explore “early harvest” in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas. Both sides on Thursday also agreed to make “substantive” preparation for the next SR dialogue.After the 35th round of Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) talks on Thursday, India and China said in separate statements that they discussed issues pertaining to delimitation, border management, mechanism building and cross-border cooperation. Indian side also stressed on early meeting of the next Expert Level Mechanism on Trans-border Rivers.While the thawing of the relationship in the past 20 months has been interspersed with bouts of public clashes over issues related to Arunachal Pradesh and China’s ties with Pakistan, border peace coupled with economic pragmatism has kept the relationship on an even keel.PM Narendra Modi visited China for the SCO summit last year and India expects President Xi Jinping to participate in the BRICS summit in September this year, not least because of the importance Beijing attaches to the grouping of major emerging economies. Diplomatic sources say there’s a decent chance of Xi visiting India this year, given China’s public support for India’s BRICS presidency and the improvement in bilateral ties. India had also declared last year it will support China in hosting the 2027 BRICS summit.In the talks on Thursday, according to the Indian readout, both sides also agreed to maintain regular exchanges and contacts at the diplomatic and military levels through mechanisms including those that were agreed as part of outcomes of the last SR Talks.In the SR talks last year, both sides had underlined the need to take a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship while seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for settlement of the boundary question. Doval and Wang had also agreed to set up a working group to advance effective border management to maintain peace and tranquillity in India-China border areas.