India and China’s Special Representatives (SR) have met in Beijing after a gap of nearly five years and agreed on a number of steps to get the bilateral relationship moving.
According to India’s foreign ministry, the SRs, India’s NSA Ajit Doval and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “reiterated the importance of maintaining a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”
Underscoring the need to ensure peace and tranquility in the border areas, the SRs provided positive directions for cross-border cooperation “including resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, data sharing on trans-border rivers and border trade.”
China’s Foreign Ministry statement was more detailed, saying that both sides will “refine management and control mechanisms, enhance confidence building measures …and strengthen cross-border exchanges and cooperation.”
To this end, the Special Representative mechanism will be strengthened, greater coordination between the military and diplomatic negotiations and the WMCC (Working Mechanism For Consultation & Coordination on Bordre Affairs) will be tasked with ensuring follow up.
In addition to Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra and data exchange on the Brahmaputra, China said there will be trade facilitation through the Nathu-La border in Sikkim.
China’s foreign ministry said NSA Doval has indicated willingness to strengthen strategic communication and inject new impetus into the bilateral relationship.
The next meeting of the SR mechanism will be held in India, sometime in 2025. That would give the two sides enough time to see how the relationship is taking off and what are the challenges that need to be addressed.
While both sides have reiterated the importance of trade, India’s ballooning deficit with China, now topping $100 billion, is a major concern and efforts so far to get Beijing to redress it have not worked.
The worry is China sees trade as a weapon against India, which is presumably the same view in other parts of the world.
