India-China agree on ‘patrolling arrangements’ and resolution of the military standoff, says Vikram Misri

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri addresses a press conference in New Delhi on October 21, 2024 Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In a dramatic development, India and China have reached an agreement on “patrol arrangements” and a proposal to Standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) The government announced this on Monday (October 21, 2024). Sources told The Hindu that the patrolling arrangement agreement extends beyond the areas along the LAC where troop personnel have already withdrawn over the past few years, and also includes the hitherto unresolved areas of Demchok and Depsang. Which points towards India-China. The impasse is now expected to be resolved by April 2020.

However, the Foreign Ministry did not provide further details about the agreement, whether there would be any changes to the pre-2020 status quo, and whether recently created “buffer zones” would continue to exist for patrolling purposes”, Mr Misri said. Both sides “have reached an agreement on the issues that were being discussed”.

The announcement by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Tuesday came amid a media briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia for the BRICS summit, which he will attend with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Over the past several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close touch with each other at various fora, and as a result of these discussions, patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control have been agreed upon. In the India-China border areas, disengagement and resolution of issues that arose in these areas in 2020,” Mr Misri told reporters, adding that both sides will now take “next steps” on this.

The timing of the announcement of the India-China agreement, just a day before the BRICS summit, indicates that there will be a meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Xi on the sidelines, which speculation had now expected to happen. Although the two leaders had met 18 times before the Galwan clashes in June 2020 that left 20 Indian soldiers dead, they have since spoken only twice on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia in 2022. and the BRICS summit in South Africa in 2023.

While Mr Misri did not confirm a meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Xi, he said the government was discussing a schedule of several bilateral meetings in Kazan, the venue of the BRICS summit.

,[BRICS] It is a multilateral programme, however, there is always a provision for bilateral meetings on the sidelines. We are currently looking at the overall program of the Prime Minister. There are many requests for bilateral meetings, and we will give you information about bilateral meetings as soon as possible,” Mr Mishri told reporters when asked, adding that a meeting with the Chinese leader was one of them.

Mr Misri, who was previously India’s ambassador to China, and was no doubt a key part of the recent talks, did not give further details of the agreement between the two sides. He cited recent meetings that had yielded successes, including two meetings between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi in June-July, two meetings of the WMCC mechanism of diplomatic and military officials in July-August. A meeting was held in September between NSA Ajit Doval and Mr Wang, who is also the special representative on border talks. This was followed by intensive talks between military commanders and Foreign Ministry officials over the last few weeks. With the visit of Mr Modi and Mr Xi to Russia confirmed for the BRICS, the deadline for the talks to conclude with an outcome has emerged.

Jaishankar agreed to disengagement and patrolling on LAC

At a summit, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, “We are back to where the situation was in 2020; So we can say that the process of disengagement with China has been completed. “As far as I know, we have reached an agreement regarding patrolling.”

When asked about the progress in India-China relations, he said, “It is a good, positive development.” This is the result of patient, sustained diplomacy. We have had to make counter-deployments, but we have also been talking on the side since September 2020.

“If we are able to reach an understanding with regard to patrolling and maintaining the sanctity of the LAC, it creates a basis for the peace and tranquility that should prevail in the border areas, which used to be there before 2020. If you disturb the peace and quiet, how do you expect the rest of the relationship to proceed. We have come to this understanding today itself, we have to see what the consequences will be.”