New Delhi: Beijing wants progress in talks for an early-harvest deal to settle the least contentious stretch of the disputed India-China boundary, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12-13.
New Delhi and Beijing are also working on a new mechanism for more effective management of the disputed boundary between India and China. With the relations between the two nations returning to the track after the military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh between April-May 2020 and October 2024, New Delhi has also nudged Beijing for an early meeting of the experts on Transboundary Rivers.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval hosted Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China in New Delhi for a BRICS meeting this week. They also had a bilateral meeting on Monday amid preparations for the 25th round of boundary negotiations expected to be held later this year in Beijing.
Wang, who is a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, is also Doval’s counterpart in President Xi Jinping’s government in Beijing. They also double up as the special representatives of the two governments for the boundary negotiations.
The meeting between Doval and Wang took place almost 10 months after they met in New Delhi in August 2025, and held the 24th round of negotiations to settle the boundary dispute.
Wang also called on Narendra Modi on Tuesday, along with his counterparts from the other BRICS nations.
A source told DH on Wednesday that the two sides discussed exploring an early harvest deal on the less contentious stretches – mainly the Sikkim Sector – of the India-China disputed boundary.
New Delhi had long been opposed to resolving the dispute in a piecemeal manner and had in the past rejected such proposals from Beijing, citing the 2005 agreement.
The special representatives of India and China had reached an agreement in 2005 on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Question, which had stipulated that the settlement “must be final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary”.
But the 24th round of boundary negotiations, which took place a few months after the military stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh had been completely resolved, saw New Delhi agreeing with Beijing on setting up an Expert Group, under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC), to explore early harvest in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas.
The source in New Delhi said that the two sides were also discussing the establishment of a working mechanism to advance effective border management to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas. A readout issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on Wang’s talks with Modi noted that Beijing was willing to work with New Delhi to implement the “important consensus” reached by the leaders of the two countries during their October 2024 meeting at Kazan in Russia and the September 2025 meeting at Tianjin in the communist country itself. Wang stressed on continuously build trust, dispel doubts and properly handle sensitive issues between India and China.
Wang reiterated Beijing’s position that the boundary dispute should not be allowed to cast a shadow on the overall India-China relations.
New Delhi, however, has been maintaining that peace and tranquillity must be maintained along the disputed boundary for the overall improvement in India-China bilateral relations.
Doval, according to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, underlined that stable, predictable and constructive bilateral relations would contribute to enhanced trust and deeper understanding between the two sides. He also emphasised the importance of sensitivity being consistently displayed to each other’s issues of core concern.
Source: https://www.deccanherald.com