China has announced that it has reached further consensus with India on withdrawing troops from certain areas of their disputed border, signaling a potential easing of tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, Bloomberg reports.
A spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry, Zhang Xiaogang, stated that the two sides have “further narrowed differences and broadened consensus” during recent diplomatic and military talks. He confirmed that both countries have engaged in close dialogue and exchanged opinions on border issues through various channels.
“The two sides agreed to strengthen dialogue and consultation, accommodate each other’s legitimate concerns and reach a mutually acceptable solution at an early date,” Zhang added.
Ties between China and India have been strained since June 2020 when violent clashes between soldiers along the disputed Himalayan border resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers. Since then, both countries have held over 50 rounds of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the border crisis, with incremental progress being made.
The latest statements follow recent meetings between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Laos in July, and between India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese officials on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in Russia earlier this month.
In a speech delivered in New York on Wednesday, Jaishankar revealed that China and India have successfully resolved 75% of the troop disengagement in the eastern Ladakh region. However, he acknowledged the ongoing challenge of patrolling the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border.
“The main issue right now is the patrolling,” he stated. “How do we, both of us, patrol up to the Line of Actual Control?”
