China, India to hold 25th round of talks on boundary question in Beijing
Expert notes regular talks point to greater stability, improvement in bilateral ties
China and India are scheduled to hold the 25th round of talks between the special representatives on the boundary question in Beijing on Tuesday, and the two sides will discuss the boundary question as well as bilateral, international and regional issues, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. Chinese experts said the regular talks signal that bilateral relations are moving toward greater stability and improvement.
As agreed between the two sides, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, and China’s Special Representative on the Boundary Question Between China and India Wang Yi will co-chair the 25th Round of Talks Between the Special Representatives on the Boundary Question with India’s Special Representative and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Beijing on August 25, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.
When answering a question about the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that the Talks Between the Special Representatives of China and India on the Boundary Question are the main channel for negotiations between China and India on the boundary question, and also an important platform for communication between the two sides on issues of mutual interest.
In August last year, China and India successfully held the 24th round of talks, during which the two sides had candid and in-depth exchanges of views on the boundary question and reached a number of common understandings, Lin added.
During this round of talks, the two sides will continue the in-depth communication on the boundary question in the spirit of the common understandings between leaders of the two countries to jointly keep the border areas peaceful and tranquil. The two sides will also exchange views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues, the spokesperson said.
The 24th Round of Talks Between the Special Representatives of China and India on the Boundary Question was held in New Delhi, India, in August last year.
The successive rounds of talks on the China-India boundary question signal that the two sides are advancing boundary negotiations steadily and that bilateral relations are moving toward greater stability and improvement, Qian Feng, director of the Research Department at Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, told the Global Times.
Ahead of the talks, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday stressed that peace along the border is essential for improving bilateral ties with China.
“I think we went through a particularly bad patch between the summer of 2020 and the autumn of 2024, and that was primarily an outcome of the situation in the border areas,” Jaishankar said at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum in New Delhi, according to the Indian Express.
“At the end of the day, peace and tranquility in the border areas is a prerequisite for good relations, and the state of the border, to a very large measure, naturally would determine the state of the relations,” he said.
Responding to questions from Bloomberg and Reuters concerning social media claims about stepped-up Chinese military activity and an Indian government spokesman also not denying that a new border incident had occurred, Guo Jiakun, spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on August 12 that “The China-India border situation is generally stable at the moment. China and India held the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs last week. The two sides agreed to maintain communication via diplomatic and military channels and jointly uphold peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
Despite the positive momentum of bilateral engagement, Indian side has still taken provocative moves along the border. India on August 7 announced what it called “standard” names for 27 locations in so-called “Arunachal Pradesh,” a move that some Indian media outlets portrayed as an effort to counter China and further linked to the latest reports of border tensions.
Responding to the issue on August 10, spokesperson Guo said, “Zangnan region is China’s territory. China does not recognize the so-called ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ illegally set up by India.”
The past rounds of talks between the Special Representatives on the China-India Boundary Question have demonstrated that the two countries have the capacity to manage border issues, Hu Zhiyong, Director of the Center for India Studies, Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang International Studies University and a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. Professor Hu stated:
If India is sincere in creating a friendly atmosphere for the upcoming BRICS Summit, it should avoid creating new disputes over border issues, as doing so would neither help resolve existing differences nor contribute to the improvement of bilateral relations.