Explained: The Special Representative Dialogue Between India And China

After a gap of five years, India and China are set to resume their Special Representative (SR) dialogue on border issues -- the latest sign of improved ties between New Delhi and Beijing following an agreement on patrolling the boundary. National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval will lead the Indian delegation for talks scheduled to be held in Beijing on December 18.

Confirming the development, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the discussion will focus on managing "peace and tranquillity in the border areas and explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question."

"Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor and India's Special Representative (SR) on the India-China boundary question, will hold the 23rd meeting of the SRs in Beijing on December 18 with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China," it said in a late-night statement.

The decision to revive the dialogue mechanism, which was suspended since 2020, was taken on the eve of a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan in October.

About Special Representative Dialogue

The special representative mechanism on the India-China boundary question was established in 2003 with the aim of exploring a political solution to the boundary issue. In 2012, New Delhi and Beijing also launched the working mechanism for consultation and coordination on border affairs.

The Wednesday meeting in Beijing will be the 23rd round of talks. The last round of SR dialogue was held in New Delhi in December 2019, and since then it has been suspended because of the eastern Ladakh border row.

India-China Ties

But the ties between India and China deteriorated sharply after the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that began in May 2020. It followed a deadly clash at the Galwan Valley in June in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

The face-off effectively ended following the completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21 this year.

Two days after the pact was firmed up, Prime Minister Modi and President Xi held talks on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

In the nearly 50-minute meeting, the two sides agreed to revive several dialogue mechanisms including the Special Representatives dialogue on boundary question. Both leaders also agreed to encourage more engagement between officials "at all levels" to "promote the early return of relations between the two countries to the track of stable development".

On his part, Prime Minister Modi underscored the importance of properly handling differences and not allowing them to disturb peace and tranquillity in border areas. He said mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of the relations. 

India has been maintaining that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas.

Following the completion of the disengagement process in Demchok and Depsang, Indian and Chinese militaries also resumed patrolling activities in the two areas after a gap of almost four-and-a-half years.

In a statement in Lok Sabha on December 3, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said India is committed to remaining engaged with China to find a fair and mutually acceptable settlement of the boundary issue but made it clear that its ties with Beijing will be contingent upon strictly respecting the sanctity of the LAC and adhering to the pacts on border management with no attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo.

The disengagement of troops has been achieved in "full" in eastern Ladakh through a step-by-step process, culminating in Depsang and Demchok, and India now expects the commencement of talks on remaining issues that it had placed on the agenda, he had said.

Since their first meeting more than a decade ago, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have given importance to finding a solution for effective border management, and the meeting in December 2019 was the 22nd meeting in a series of discussions to find a solution to settle any differences along the more-than 4,000 km Line of Actual Control or LAC.

The LAC has no clear demarcations and both sides have their differences in understanding where the boundary lies in the harsh and arguably most difficult terrain, which spans the highest mountain ranges in the world - The Himalayas. The border, originally between India and Tibet is now considered the boundary between India and China after Tibet's takeover by China in 1959.