Indian, Chinese Officials Agree to Redouble Disengagement Effort Along Disputed Border

Indian Border Security Force troops on patrol as an Indian army convoy passes through on a highway leading toward Leh, bordering China, in Gagangir, India, on June 19, 2020. Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

NEW DELHI—India and China have mutually pledged to accelerate efforts to resolve their longstanding border dispute, following a high-level meeting between Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

However, analysts say that securing a complete disengagement along the India–China border is a complex challenge, given current perceptions of the border.

The two officials met in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sept. 12, during the 14th annual meeting of national security advisers for BRICS nations. Originally an association of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, BRICS expanded in 2010 to include South Africa and last year opened its doors to the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

“Both sides agreed to work with urgency and redouble their efforts to realize complete disengagement in the remaining areas,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Sept. 12.

The two sides reviewed their recent efforts to resolve the pending issues along what India calls the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Indian statement said an “early resolution” would create conditions to stabilize and rebuild bilateral relations.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a press conference on Sept. 13 that the border situation is “generally stable and under control,” saying that disengagement had already been realized in four areas in the Western sector of the border, including the Galwan Valley. That area was the site of a bloody conflict in 2020.

Mao said of the Doval–Wang meeting that the two sides “discussed progress made in recent consultation on border issues and agreed to deliver on the common understandings reached by leaders of the two countries, enhance mutual understanding and trust, create conditions for improving bilateral ties, and maintain communication to this end.”

India and China share more than 2,000 miles of disputed border, with each side holding a different perception of the boundary. Chinese claims have continuously changed since 1949, when communist leader Mao Zedong annexed Tibet and East Turkestan. The annexation of the two areas removed a crucial buffer zone and brought the asserted Chinese border to India’s doorstep.

In 1962, the two countries engaged in a full-fledged war in which Chinese forces further encroached upon Indian territory. Such incursions continued after the war’s end. However, the Galwan conflict in 2020—in which 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers lost their lives—marked a major escalation.

Since that time, the military buildup on both sides has escalated, according to a 2023 U.S. Institute of Peace analysis by Nishant Rajeev and Alex Stephenson, who concluded that “despite repeated disengagement agreements since 2020, both sides have deepened their relative footholds along the border, bringing in new combined-arms brigades and building additional infrastructure.”

Stepped-Up Meetings

Meetings between officials of the two sides also took place in both July and August, the shortest period between meetings since 2020.

Wang met with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on July 4 in Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, where they agreed that “prolongation of the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side,” New Delhi said in a statement.

The two met again in late July in Laos, on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting, and on Aug. 29 in Beijing as part of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India–China Border Affairs meetings.

The two sides agreed to “work together to turn the page on the border situation at an early date in accordance with the guiding principles of the important common understandings reached between the two foreign ministers,” reported Chinese state-owned outlet Global Times.

A view of Pangong Tso Lake from the point where the lake starts in India, on June 22, 2021. The lake, which stretches for 134 kilometers and ends in Chinese-controlled territory, has been the site of heavy military buildup on both sides. Venus Upadhayaya/The Epoch Times

‘Easier Said Than Done’

While news of the Sept. 12 Doval–Wang meeting made global headlines, experts say that disengagement will not be easy in reality.

“It is easier said than done, for the simple reason that in the first place, China has never admitted to [having] changed the status quo in [Eastern] Ladakh,” Claude Arpi, an India-based China expert told The Epoch Times on Sept. 13.

The Chinese regime enacted a land borders law in 2021 stipulating that the country shall “promote coordination between border defense and social, economic development in border areas.” The law gave impetus to China’s development of significant civilian and military infrastructure along the border.

Arpi said India’s and China’s differing perceptions of the current border add to the complex relationship between the two countries.

“Further, there is not one LAC, but two: the Indian-perceived one and the Chinese-perceived one. Are both sides ready to agree on one LAC? It would be a first step,” he said, adding that another major issue is that the “LAC” has moved over the years.

“Just have a look at the Line, which was agreed [to] by the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1956 (and reconfirmed in December 1959). It is far from the present Chinese claims.”

Jaishankar, speaking at the Geneva Center for Security Policy on Sept. 12, said “75 percent of disengagement problems are sorted out” in eastern Ladakh but that the last 25 percent are the most “complex.”

Arpi concurred with Jaishankar’s widely quoted assessment, and added, “to put it mildly.”

Referring to areas in eastern and northern Ladakh that continue to bedevil efforts at disengagement, he said, “A lot of creativity and goodwill will be required from both sides to solve the Depsang and Demchok issues.”

Depsang and Demchok: Remaining Friction Points

Depsang—a high altitude, table-top plateau—lies in eastern Ladakh in the disputed Aksai Chin region and is divided by the LAC into Indian- and Chinese-controlled regions.

The village of Demchok, historically the last village in Ladakh before the Tibetan border, is nestled at the foot of Chhota Kailash, a holy mountain revered by both Buddhists and Hindus. After the 1962 Sino–Indian War, Demchok was divided into Indian- and Chinese-controlled portions, separated by a narrow strip of land and a stream. The Chinese-controlled portion is administered as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

To solve the issues in these remaining friction points, Arpi said, both India and China would need to sign a map with an “agreed line of control or agreed buffer zone,” in which troops from both countries either jointly or alternately patrol the territory.

“This concept already exists in [the] Gogra-Hot Springs area,” Arpi said.

Situated between Depsang and Demchok on the LAC, Gogra and Hot Springs are two valued patches of vegetation in the high altitude, generally barren region. Arpi noted that prior to being designated a buffer zone, Gogra–Hot Springs was a “mutually agreed upon disputed area.”

Engaging While Disengaging

Meanwhile, there is evidence that while the Chinese regime is formally disengaging, it is simultaneously building up its military presence along the LAC. 

Recent commercial satellite imagery shows the development of a Chinese military base at Pangong Tso, a remote lake astride the LAC just south of Gogra–Hot Springs, where troops began disengagement in late 2022.

Images provided by the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies corroborated the establishment of this base.

“Commercial satellite imagery also shows what appears to be barracks and other new infrastructure in the Galwan Valley. These new sites point to an increasingly permanent Chinese military presence along the border,” Rajeev and Stephenson wrote in their report.