India and China held the 29th round of border consultation in Beijing on March 27 and discussed ways to achieve complete disengagement and resolve the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh region.
“The 29th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was held on 27 March 2024 in Beijing,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a press release. “Joint Secretary (East Asia) from the Ministry of External Affairs led the Indian delegation. The Chinese delegation was led by the Director General of the Boundary & Oceanic Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the statement added.
‘Complete disengagement’
Ties between India and China nose-dived significantly following the deadly clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in more than four decades. The last meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs was held on November 30 last year. After the meeting on Wednesday, MEA said, “The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on how to achieve complete disengagement and resolve the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector of India-China border areas.”
“In the interim, both sides agreed to maintain regular contact through diplomatic and military channels and on the need to uphold peace and tranquility on the ground in the border areas in accordance with existing bilateral agreements and protocols,” MEA said. The latest round of border talks came as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday stressed that normalcy in bilateral ties will only be achieved based on the traditional deployment of troops, which will be the prerequisite for the relationship.
‘Good ties with neighbours’
“My first duty to Indians is to secure the border. I can never compromise on that,” Jaishankar said while responding to a question on the current state of India’s relations with China during his interaction with the Indian diaspora here in the Malaysian capital. He said every country wants “good relations with its neighbours. Who doesn’t? But every relationship has to be founded on some basis.”
“We’re still negotiating with the Chinese. I talk to my counterpart. We meet from time to time. Our military commanders negotiate with each other. But we are very clear that we had an agreement. There is a Line of Actual Control. We have a tradition of not bringing troops to that line. Both of us have bases some distance away, which is our traditional deployment place. And we want that normalcy,” he said. “So that normalcy that returns to where we are in terms of the troop deployment will be the basis for the relationship going forward. And we’ve been very, very honest with the Chinese about it,” Jaishankar said.
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