India and China will hold the 18th round of border talks in Delhi from Monday - the first round of negotiations after PM Modi came to power last year.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
On the border dispute, officials on both sides say the protracted boundary talks made progress, while both sides made attempts to avert tensions along the 3,488-kilometre-long Line of Actual Control, which remains undefined.
India and China have so far held 19 rounds of talks to resolve the boundary dispute.
China has reacted cautiously to India's proposal for the establishment of mountain strike corps along the Sino-Indian border, while the official media in Beijing ignored the development.
This is the second time that China has defended the decision to put a technical hold on India's bid to ban Azhar, the mastermind of the January 2 Pathankot terrorist attack.
The decision was taken during the annual 19th round of boundary talks in Beijing between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is all set for an unprecedented third five-year term as he was 'elected' to the powerful Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party on Saturday while several top leaders including Premier Li Keqiang have been left out in the major shake-up at the top.
China on Monday said Defence Minister A K Antony's visit Beijing has given both countries an opportunity to enhance their "strategic cooperative partnership" and jointly maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas through increased military-to-military coordination.
The external affairs ministry said the talks were 'positive'.
NSA Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28
Talks between Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to improve the relations got off on a rough note at the northeastern Chinese port city of Tianjin, with Xie launching a blistering attack on Washington, accusing it of being the "owner of coercive diplomacy".
We can expect to see more Chinese wolf warrior diplomats on the prowl, in India's neighbourhood, though its mailed fist is not so visible while dealing with India, observes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
Continuing his fast-paced diplomacy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to China's Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday. During the phone call, Li conveyed his government's desire to establish a robust partnership with the new government in India.
Virtually defending the latest incursion by the People's Liberation Army in the Chumar sector in Ladakh, China on Thursday said its troops were patrolling on its side of the Line of Actual Control and asserted that "status quo" should not be changed pending a final settlement.
The Chinese and the Indian troops were engaged in a standoff for 73 days in Doklam.
Special Representatives of India and China will hold the 16th round of boundary talks in Beijing on Friday, the first such meeting under the new Chinese leadership, to make another bid to move forward on the resolution of the vexed dispute.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid's daylong "goodwill" visit to Nepal on July 9 will give him an opportunity to meet top functionaries of its interim election government as well as the leaders of the main political parties.
China on Tuesday said border talks with India have yielded "initial results", enabling the two neighbours to properly handle their differences over the vexed boundary issue and maintain peace along the frontier.
'China knows the best way of twisting the knife in its dealings with India: By launching a major incursion into Indian territory,' says Rajeev Sharma.
India, Taiwan and countries with large numbers of Tibetans, Uyghurs and overseas Chinese will be prominent among those that witness elevated United Front activity, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RAW officer.
China on Sunday said the border dispute with India has been "contained" and the Indian elephant and Chinese dragon should "do more" to strengthen the bilateral cooperation to facilitate its settlement.
Even senior Indian officials have openly stated that Chinese troops did not enter into the Indian territory, Wang said.
India on Wednesday hit out at China for demanding "solid evidence" for getting Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar banned by the United Nations
Other issues discussed included cooperation for the success of the India-China Tourism Year and Youth exchanges.
Besides the border question, India and China discussed issues related to counterterrorism including Beijing's blocking of India's bid in the United Nations to ban Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval said on Thursday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Chennai to a grand welcome on Friday, a visit that comes soon after the recent episode of turbulence in bilateral ties over India's decision to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir's special status and reorganise the state into two union territories.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin "called in" India's envoy in Beijing Ashok Kantha to lodge a protest on Modi's visit on Friday
Expressing grave concern over a US nuclear-powered submarine sustaining damage in the disputed South China Sea, China on Friday demanded Washington to reveal the details and the location of the accident and blamed America's frequent air and naval sorties in the Indo-Pacific to assert the "freedom of navigation" as the "root cause" of the incident.
'Xi's emphasis on enhancing conventional military deterrence capabilities, joint operations and power projection are likely to increase friction points with India as with other nations,' points out China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Dr Manmohan Singh would be faced with very few choices in Beijing given the Chinese conceived notions of the world today and India's low place in their calculus, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
The meeting, which comes after the Doklam standoff, is aimed at a working a new paradigm for the bilateral relations for the next 15 years.
Xi and Modi are scheduled to hold informal summit talks on Friday evening and on Saturday.
Leaders of the United States, India, Australia and Japan did discuss the 'challenge' posed by China during the first meeting of the Quad, and they made clear that none of them have any 'illusions' about Beijing, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Ahmedabad on Wednesday on a three-day visit, which is expected to define the relationship between the two neighbours who have had a troubled past.
'Problems will keep recurring unless China vows to resolve all outstanding issues between the two sides,' says Sana Hashmi.
Spread over two days -- Friday and Saturday -- at a picturesque desert resort in Southern California, Obama, 51, and Xi, 59, had several rounds of meetings and a candle-lit dinner spread over nearly eight hours on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues.
'During disengagement, you don't find violence.' 'And that, too, the killing of a commanding officer.' 'This indicates that this is more serious than previous incidents.'
'India need to look beyond the economic prism.' 'China had no qualms in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council last year -- not once, but thrice -- thus violating Indian sensitivities,' observes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Xi has already been elected as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China at its once-in-five-year congress in October last year.
