India’s announcement that its four-year border dispute with China has ended should be welcome news. One less hotspot in a world on fire can only be a good thing, right?
Perhaps, though it is unclear what kind of resolution has been reached — and Beijing’s initial period of silence has done little to inspire confidence. Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday said that the two nations had agreed to allow regular patrols along their contested Himalayan border. A day later, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) confirmed the deal.
Relations had soured after deadly clashes in June 2020 — involving rocks, iron bars and fists — around the high-altitude Galwan River and Pangong Tso in Ladakh left 20 Indian soldiers dead, along with an unknown number of Chinese troops. Months later, the armies fired the first shots at each other in four decades.
The thaw paved the way for a bilateral meeting on Wednesday between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia. The two had not held formal talks since the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in 2022, so any rapprochement was a welcome development — and one closely watched in Washington. The US has used the icy relations between Modi and Xi to draw New Delhi closer, strengthening regional groupings like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the US, India, Japan and Australia, and pressuring New Delhi to join in sanctions against Russia, something it has so far declined to do.
China and India share a 3,488km unmarked border, known as the Line of Actual Control, and fought a war there in 1962. Over the past four years, the nuclear-armed neighbors had moved fighter jets, artillery and missiles closer to the boundary and deployed thousands of troops in a military buildup that had alarmed observers.
India already has significant deployments along its border with rival Pakistan, as well as Jammu and Kashmir, and in the north and northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Sparing its military another winter stationed high in the Himalayas would free up soldiers and equipment to be sent elsewhere. For China, removing the irritation with India would leave the Philippines — besides Taiwan — as its main flashpoint over conflicting territorial claims.
It is difficult to overstate the far-reaching fallout from the 2020 clashes. India imposed strict rules that required government sign-off for Chinese investments, banned hundreds of Chinese apps and slowed visa approvals. Both nations expelled each other’s journalists and suspended direct passenger flights. Indian protesters burned effigies of Xi, while traders set alight Chinese goods as relations hit a new low. At least 21 rounds of high-level military talks followed, and gradually, tensions began to recede. All the while, Indian companies were arguing for the curbs on Chinese investment to be lifted as they struggled to scale up manufacturing amid increasing demand for electric vehicles, chips and artificial intelligence-driven technology.
Officials in New Delhi have been laying the groundwork for warming ties for months now, with talk of easing investment restrictions and speeding up visa approvals for Chinese technicians. There is a tacit acknowledgment that India cannot advance as quickly as it would like without Beijing’s money and expertise. The government’s own annual Economic Survey report released in July said that to boost its manufacturing sector, India has two options: increase imports from China, or attract more foreign direct investment from the country.
“Is it possible to plug India into the global supply chain without plugging itself into the China supply chain,” the report asked.
Yet the real question now is whether this agreement would stick. Defense observers point to a standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017 at Doklam, a plateau near the Indian border that is claimed by China and Bhutan. Following an accord to disengage, it later emerged that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had continued to occupy part of the tableland, building infrastructure like helipads.
There is no doubt something similar could happen here. As Sushant Singh, a former Indian Army officer who is now a lecturer in South Asian Studies at Yale University told me, the lack of detail is jarring, particularly around what territory India now controls in the contested areas. The 2020 conflict cost India more than 300km2 of land along the disputed mountainous terrain, Bloomberg News reported at the time.
So what motivated this thaw? Next month’s election in the US, for one. The race is tight and there is the distinct possibility that former US president Donald Trump would return to the White House. One less troubled relationship would suit both parties, Singh said. And for China, an India that pursues an independent foreign policy separate from Western interests is preferable.
Despite the agreement to disengage, the lack of trust is palpable. We are still just one misstep from an army patrol — or one fiery local commander losing his temper — from another dangerous flare-up. It is not yet time to relax.
Ruth Pollard is a Bloomberg Opinion managing editor. Previously, she was South and Southeast Asia government team leader at Bloomberg News and Middle East correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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