Indian, Chinese armies hold talks on border

The Indian and Chinese armies reviewed the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Arunachal Pradesh sector, days after the two sides held Special Representative talks in Beijing on the festering boundary question.

The focus of the corps commander-level talks at the Wacha-Damai border meeting point in Arunachal Pradesh’s Kibithoo region on Sunday was to maintain peace and tranquillity along the frontier, people familiar with the matter said.

The Indian delegation was headed by Lt General Girish Kalia, the commander of the Army’s Dimapur-based 3 Corps. There is no official word yet on the talks.

The meeting also came amid reports of aggressive military posturing by Chinese troops along the LAC in the Upper Subansiri region of Arunachal Pradesh.

In the Special Representative (SR) talks on August 25, India conveyed to China the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity along the frontier for overall bilateral ties.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval held the SR talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, which focused on delimitation of the frontier and sustaining work on trans-boundary cooperation.

In his remarks at the meeting, Doval said that normalcy in the ties has been a direct result of both sides maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

The Indian side highlighted the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in the India-China border areas for the continued development and progress of the bilateral relationship, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said on the SR talks.

Both Doval and Wang are the designated SRs for the boundary talks mechanism, which was established in 2003 to comprehensively address the dispute over the India-China border spanning 3,488 km.

In the last few months, the two sides have taken a series of measures to rebuild their relationship after it came under severe strain following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020.