China on Thursday said the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia's Kazan on Wednesday carries a "great significance" as they reached an "important common understandings" to improve the bilateral ties.
The situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh is stable but sensitive and not normal, Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi said on Tuesday on the dragging military standoff between China and India in the region.
India and China on Tuesday discussed the recent spate of incursions and ways to maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the border areas.
China on Tuesday confirmed that it has reached an agreement with India to end the standoff between the two armies in eastern Ladakh.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reiterated that the situation at the India-China border is generally stable and both sides should consolidate the present achievements and strictly abide by the relevant agreements while pushing for further cooling and easing of the conditions for sustainable peace and tranquillity at the frontier.
Her comments come a day after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Geneva that roughly 75 percent of the "disengagement problems" with China are sorted out but the bigger issue has been the increasing militarisation of the frontier.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that India stands ready to provide all possible cooperation towards ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict and that dialogue and diplomacy is the only way to bring peace to the region.
In his conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Xi Jinping stressed that improving China-India relations serves common interests and is conducive to peace and stability of the region and the world.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed to Chinese President Xi Jinping India's concerns on the "unresolved" issues along Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh during a conversation on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said on Thursday.
Jaishankar's talks with Yang and later in the Strategic Dialogue were expected to cover the key India-China differences like China blocking India's bid to join the NSG and UN ban on Azhar.
'The future of BRICS is under stress as Chinese attempts to expand the platform are being resisted by India and Brazil.' 'Beijing is focused on a quick expansion with the aim of giving the platform a distinctly anti-Western orientation, which New Delhi and Brasilia seem to have no interest in,' notes Harsh V Pant.
'My understanding is that by the time President Xi Jinping came for the Chennai summit [2019], he had already instructed his army to undertake the action in Galwan in the summer of 2020.'
India and China on Thursday vowed to redouble efforts to resolve the remaining issues in eastern Ladakh at the earliest and 'stabilise and rebuild' ties even as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar conveyed to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during a meeting that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) must be respected.
A broad consensus has been achieved by India and China on restoring the 'ground situation' along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) pursuant to talks, including for patrolling and grazing cattle in the traditional areas, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday.
'Given China's past behaviour and their territorial claims, should we be sceptical regarding China's willingness to adhere to these agreements fully? The answer is yes.' 'As Ronald Reagan famously said in the context of the SALT talks, 'Trust, but verify!' India should also do the same.' 'This has already begun with foot patrolling, drones, satellite imagery and so on. India's military deployment did mirror China's and will continue to do so in the future.'
'Once we deal with the disengagement, there is the larger issue as both of us have brought a very large number of troops up to the border.' 'So there is what we call the de-escalation issue, and then there is the larger, the next step is really, how do you deal with the rest of the relationship?'
The last Indian external affairs minister to visit Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj. She had travelled to Islamabad in December 2015 to attend a conference on Afghanistan.
The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was established in 2012 as an institutional mechanism for consultation and coordination for the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
Disengagement from the LAC will remain a chimera because China has given enough indications that the PLA will not move back any more. China has even deployed drones to monitor and deny any patrolling by Indian troops even in the buffer zones which are all in Indian Territory, explains Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Addressing a symposium on the international situation and China's foreign relations in 2022, Wang said both countries have maintained communication through diplomatic and military-to-military channels.
'The border deal offers a hedge for India against Trump's unpredictability when it comes to his approach to competition with China.'
Prime Minister Modi and President Xi held the conversation on Wednesday on the sidelines of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Johannesburg.
Lisa Curtis, who served as deputy assistant to President Trump and as National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021, said she expected the same bumps for India and the US, as in Trump's first term, including tariff, dependence on Russia over arms supply and oil purchase from Iran. Curtis, however, said both countries could never enter an alliance but develop a partnership that is "short of an alliance". She hoped them to achieve a cooperation that deters China, but also prepares both countries in case of a crisis or conflict, be it in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or another flare-up on the India-China border.
India and China held two days of military talks in an "open and constructive manner" for an early and mutually acceptable resolution of the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh and agreed to maintain peace on the ground.
India has not yet received any confirmation on Chinese President Xi Jinping's in-person participation at the upcoming G20 summit, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday amid reports that he is likely skip the conclave.
Modi is visiting the African country from August 22 to 24 at the invitation of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa is hosting the first in-person summit of BRICS comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, since 2019.
China does not have to give up what it took in 2020, it will never give up its claim to Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and other areas, and it has all the time now to plan its next surprise, points out Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Observing that India-China relations had achieved "a high degree of maturity", Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday said both countries have mutual stake in each other's progress and should work sincerely for development of ties for the common good of the region.
The Jaishankar-Wang talks came amid the dragging border row in eastern Ladakh that entered its fifth year in May.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will travel to India to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) foreign ministers' meeting being held in Goa on May 4 and 5, the foreign ministry in Beijing announced on Tuesday.
In the document, Russia underlined that it will build on a privileged strategic partnership with India with a view to enhance and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis.
The MEA said the two sides agreed to continue discussions through diplomatic and military channels to resolve the remaining issues "at the earliest" so as to create conditions for the restoration of normalcy in the bilateral relations.
On Pakistan, the publication quoted him as saying that India wants "normal and neighborly relations."
'We should carefully handle issues concerning each other's core interests. We should properly manage and control problems that cannot be solved for the time being'
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told the media in Beijing on Monday that the two sides held an in-depth exchange of views on expediting the resolution of relevant issues.
'Trump's disregard for norms and institutions could prove very costly for America's social fabric.'
Russia on Monday accused the US of "actively" exploiting the "contradictions" between India and China to its advantage and asserted Moscow and New Delhi accumulated mutual trust and confidence based on decades-old ties that would help the two sides to deal with the current geopolitical turbulence.
Singh conveyed to Li that India wants to improve relations with China but it can happen only after peace and tranquillity are restored at the border, the sources said.
Bagchi said this when asked to comment on remarks by a Chinese diplomat that the situation in the India-China border areas is stable.
China had been trying hard to enter the Indian market, without opening its own to Indian products. There is an economic crisis in India-China relations that the Chennai Connect barely scratched the surface, points out Srikanth Kondapalli.