The militaries of India and China have reportedly agreed on the long-pending proposal to set up a hotline between their headquarters after the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, the official Chinese media said on Wednesday. Modi met Xi last week in an unprecedented two-day ‘heart-to-heart’ summit to “solidify” the India-China relationship.
“leaders of the two nations have reportedly agreed to set up a hotline between their respective military headquarters,” state-run Global Times daily reported on Wednesday.
The reported move comes after Modi and Xi agreed to issue “strategic guidance to their respective militaries to strengthen communication in order to build trust and mutual understanding and enhance predictability and effectiveness in the management of border affairs.”
“The two leaders further directed their militaries to earnestly implement various confidence building measures (CBM) agreed upon between the two sides, including the principle of mutual and equal security, and strengthen existing institutional arrangements and information sharing mechanisms to prevent incidents in border regions,” the Ministry of External Affairs had said in a press release.
The hotline was regarded as a major CBM as it would enable both the headquarters to intensify communication to avert tensions between border patrol in the 3488-km line of Actual Control (lAC) and to avert standoffs like Doklam.
Troops of India and China were locked in the 73-day standoff in Doklam since June 16 last year after the Indian side stopped the construction of a road by the Chinese Army in the disputed area. Bhutan and China have a dispute over Doklam. The face-off had ended on August 28.
The hotline was under discussion for long but reportedly bogged down over procedures like at what level it should be established in the headquarters. The Chinese military too underwent major reforms initiated by Xi under which its command structures have undergone major changes.