India has once again made it clear to China normalcy in the relationship is contingent upon peace and tranquility in the border areas and respect for the LAC. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, reiterated India’s position in his meeting with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister and senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS NSAs’ meeting in the Russian city on Thursday.
A statement issued by India’s Ministry of External Affairs late on Thursday evening said the Doval-Wang meeting gave ‘the two sides an opportunity to review the recent efforts towards finding an early resolution of the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which will create conditions to stabilize and rebuild bilateral relations.’
Interestingly, the statement said ‘both sides agreed to work with urgency and redouble their efforts to realize complete disengagement in the remaining areas.’ It is perhaps for the first time in recent months that the term ‘complete disengagement in the remaining areas’ has been mentioned. The military to military talks have been stuck on India’s insistence that the two thorny issues of Depsang plains and Demchok be resolved before normalising the relationship.
Even as late as August 29, the official statement was generic. That time India said: “the two sides had a frank, constructive and forward-looking exchange of views on the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to narrow down the differences and find early resolution of the outstanding issues,” without specifically zeroing on what has been India’s bottom line: complete disengagement or restoration of status quo ante as it existed pre-May 2020 which includes the older disputes at Depsang and Demchok
In another marked departure from recent anodyne statements, Thursday’s press release noted how Doval and Wang agreed that the India-China relationship is important not just to the two nations but also for the region and the world. “The two sides agreed that the India-China bilateral relationship is significant not just for the two countries but also for the region and the world,” the Indian statement said.
It may be premature to be hopeful of any significant breakthrough in the India-China relationship after last four years of stalemate but there is certainly some movement happening going by recent developments.
