India stays focussed on peace, tranquility at boundary talks with China

India and China have just concluded their 16th round of Special Representatives-level talks on the boundary dispute. Though no immediate concrete deliverables came out from the 28-29 June talks in Beijing between the two SRs—India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon and China’s State Councilor Yang Jiechi—China-watchers in the Ministry of External Affairs have reasons to be satisfied that the Sino-Indian engagement on the thorny boundary dispute is on the right track. The MEA said in a brief statement on Saturday morning that the Menon-Yang talks were held in a “productive, constructive and forward-looking atmosphere” and mentioned that these discussions constitute “the second step of a three- stage process”. Significantly, the Special Representatives laid a special focus on the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the India-China border areas, including possible additional confidence building measures, ways and means of strengthening existing mechanisms for consultation and coordination on border affairs and methodology to enhance the efficiency of communications between the two sides.[caption id=“attachment_915789” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] This is the most important highlight of the 16th round of boundary talks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had clearly laid down the Indian template on the boundary question when he told the visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in New Delhi last month that peace and tranquility was the most important pre-requisite for Sino-Indian engagement and without it New Delhi would find it difficult to move forward with Beijing on other issues. Li had acknowledged and appreciated the Indian stand. New Delhi was taken aback by the Chinese 19-km-deep incursion in Depsang Valley of Ladakh in April-May this year. The Indian diplomatic establishment is still foxed about the Ladakh incursion. Several top Indian officials have told this writer in private conversations that India till date does not know why the Chinese did what they did in Ladakh. India’s China-watchers still do not have any answers to crucial questions whether the Ladakh incursion was a political decision or whether the People’s Liberation Army of China acted on its own without consulting the government. Besides, there is no clarity in New Delhi whether the Chinese adventurism in Ladakh was the brainchild of the local Chinese army commanders or whether the whole thing was choreographed by top PLA bosses. Menon and Yang reviewed the status of bilateral relations in the wake of the recent landmark visit to India of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and also discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest. Menon also called on Premier Li Keqiang on 28 June and along with Yang . Menon rightly kept a laser beam focus on the issue of peace and tranquility on the Sino-Indian border. There are indications that the tough stand taken by the Chinese army during the Ladakh incursion days does not find an echo in the Chinese leadership’s bilateral engagement with their Indian interlocutors. The Chinese appear agreeable to the Indian vehement insistence that the initial Chinese proposal conveyed through the Chinese-initiated Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) draft of putting a freeze on the number of troops and the border infrastructure development was not acceptable to New Delhi. The Indian response was conveyed to China less than a week before Li landed in India on 16 May and thus the issue could not be discussed between the two prime ministers as the Chinese needed more time to study the Indian response and have proper consultations internally. The Chinese response to the Indian take on the issue has since been handed over to India. Though officially neither of the two sides has given details of the BDCA, sources say that the Chinese leadership is a tad more amenable to the Indian stand. India’s border infrastructure along the Sino-Indian border is still primitive as compared to the massive upgrade China has given to its military infrastructure all along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), particularly in Tibet. China can amass heavy weaponry like tanks and armoured personnel carriers on Indian boundary within a matter of hours, while the Indians are still years away from matching the current Chinese military build-up capability. The Ladakh episode has made one thing very clear: that the boundary question is once again back to centre stage and the military-to-military engagement between India and China will be an important key in determining any Sino-Indian bilateral engagement in the near future. An important positive statement made by the Chinese Special Representative Yang Jiechi may well determine the next course of Sino-Indian engagement in this context in the coming months. Yang went on record in telling Menon in Beijing on 28 June thus: “I stand ready to work with you to build on the work of our predecessors and break new ground to strive for the settlement of the China-India boundary question and to make greater progress in the China India strategic and cooperative partnership in the new period.” India will have to wait and see which new grounds China would be breaking on the issue of boundary dispute. Though the proof of the pudding is in eating, the Chinese officials are not known to making important statements like the one mentioned above without due clearance from the top leadership. In that sense, Yang’s remark augurs well for better cooperation between Asia’s two biggest giant states.