Nitin A. Gokhale, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of StratNews Global reports in the run-up to the Xi-Modi bilateral at BRICS 2024, their first structured meet in five years. “It is time to put the effort towards rebuilding trust between India and China in perspective and the inevitable long road that lies ahead,” he says. In his tweets, Nitin has pointed out, “India’s big ask for the last two years—restoring patrolling rights in Depsang and Demchok—has been achieved after prolonged military-diplomatic talks over 20 months”.
Misri’s Oct 22 Briefing
As Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in his briefing on Tuesday, October 22, “what it will entail is that in the pending areas under discussion, patrolling and indeed, grazing activities wherever applicable, will revert to the situation as it obtained in 2020.” The pending areas being Demchok and Depsang.
Disengagement, De-escalation & De-induction
Nitin points out, “in fact the agreement was reached early on Monday morning indicating that the talks were on through Sunday night too. That India had been pressing for this to be the first step was hinted at by the Ministry of External Affairs in this statement here too. With this, first of the three Ds has been completed”.
“The first D is disengagement (other two: deescalation and deinduction). As Misri pointed out, “as far as the disengagement agreements reached previously are concerned, those agreements were not, reopened in these discussions”.
Foreign Secretary Misri in his Tuesday briefing said, “in so far as what patrolling will entail under the agreement that was reached yesterday. Well, what it will entail is that in the pending areas under discussion, patrolling and indeed grazing activities, wherever applicable, will revert to the situation as it obtained in 2020. Incidentally, I should say that this is also what the External Affairs Minister was talking about yesterday(on Monday)”.
“And as to the other part of your question, what the, as far as the disengagement agreements reached previously are concerned, those agreements were not reopened in these discussions. The agreement that was reached yesterday, very early yesterday morning, was focused on issues that had remained outstanding in the last couple of years. So that is what I would say at this point in time”.
India-China Agreement
On the India-China agreement he added, “First, we need to implement the arrangements and agreements on the ground. The analysis of how this happened can be done later. You also asked about how future face-offs or clashes can be prevented, and I believe this is a very important question and issue you’ve raised. Our hope and effort will be that the arrangements that have been worked out and agreed upon are such that they can prevent the kind of clashes that occurred earlier in some areas near the Line of Actual Control. We will need to monitor this closely and continue to make efforts to ensure that the mechanisms and agreements are such that these clashes can be avoided. As for your final question about disengagement and where de-escalation and de-induction come into play, I would say that for now, we are focused on disengagement first, and discussions on de-escalation and de-induction will happen at the appropriate time”.
