Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.
Published October 26, 2024
- China’s Xi Jinping negotiated a truce with India’s leader, Narendra Modi.
- They agreed to a patrolling arrangement on a disputed Himalayan border
- The deal is a snub to the US, that’s been building an alliance of powers to counter China.
At the BRICS summit in Russia this week, China’s leader Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands for the first time in five years.
The symbolic moment came after a deal was struck to resolve a long-standing feud between the Asian superpowers.
In the lead-up to the summit, the countries announced they had reached a patrolling agreement that would reduce tensions along a disputed Himalayan border.
The dispute had led to deadly hand-to-hand combat in recent years, taking the lives of 20 Indian troops and at least four Chinese soldiers.
After their meeting at the summit hosted by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Xi and Modi said they would continue discussions on resolving the issue.
A setback for the US
Some analysts believe it is a development that’s unlikely to be welcomed in Washington, DC.
The US has sought to recruit India to help it contain China’s growing regional aggression alongside other members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a security pact that also includes Japan and Australia.
“So definitely, this is a setback for the United States of America’s Indo-Pacific outlook, given the kind of rapprochement we are seeing in India-China relations, and particularly India, China and Russia coming together,” Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, told Business Insider.
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SOURCE: www.businessindiser.com
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping held substantive bilateral talks this week in Kazan, Russia, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit (@NarendraModi/X)
Published October 25, 2024
After a five-year hiatus, the leaders of India and China held substantive bilateral talks this week in Kazan, Russia, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping have had little direct contact since the 2020 clashes in the Himalayan border region but agreed in Kazan that the special representatives on the India–China boundary question would meet soon to stabilise ties.
In the lead-up to the BRICS summit, India and China agreed to a deal under which patrolling rights in Depsang Plains and Demchok are to be restored and coordinated. However, the situation in other friction points – in Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso – would remain the same.
In June 2020, a major clash between the soldiers from the two countries occurred in the Galwan Valley, leading to the death of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
While the two sides are in discussions on “pending areas”, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar noted “the disengagement process with China has been completed”. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian also stated, “China and India have reached resolutions on issues concerning the border area following close communication through diplomatic and military channels.” China’s Defence Ministry declared “some consensus with India” last month on disengaging troops from friction points along what is known as the Line of Actual Control, or LAC, in eastern Ladakh.
Both India and China see this line differently. For New Delhi, the LAC is 3,488 kilometres long, while for Beijing, it constitutes only 2,000 kilometres. In recent times, frequent clashes and military stand-offs have also occurred between the soldiers guarding their respective borders. In June 2020, a major clash between the soldiers from the two countries occurred in the Galwan Valley, leading to the death of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
