Can India & China ease tensions ahead of BRICS summit?

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, August 14

Twice in the past before important multilateral summits, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met, India and China managed to resolve border disagreements that had led to troop faceoffs.

Will history repeat itself the third time because both leaders are expected to meet twice within 20 days? Modi and Xi will first meet in South Africa in late August at the BRICS summit and will also interact with each other at the G20 summit to be held here on September 9 and 10. About a week before the 2017 BRICS summit in China, the armies from both sides ended their faceoff at Doklam near Bhutan. In 2022, just before the SCO summit in Uzbekistan, both armies agreed to disengage at Gogra/Hot Springs in 2022.

It is significant that the Corps Commander-level talks held on Monday took place four months after the last military dialogue on April 23. The two sides are yet to resolve their differences over Depsang (Daulat Beg Oldi sector) and Charding Nullah junction (Demchok sector). Xi and PM Modi had briefly interacted on the margins of the previous G20 summit in Indonesia last year. But with the border disagreement still simmering, neither side acknowledged that they had met till the Chinese Foreign Ministry made the disclosure in late July. This was followed by an acknowledgement by the Ministry of External Affairs.

As is the case with the US which is engaging at the top levels to dial down tensions, India and China too have held several high-level meetings to maintain lines of communication. NSA Ajit Doval has met the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as has External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who also met his predecessor, who has since vanished from public view.