China-India Dialogue Resumes: Analyzing Beijing's Signals in Border Relations
The 23rd Meeting of Special Representatives for the China-India Boundary Question (MSRCIBQ) was held on Wednesday in Beijing, where six points of consensus were reached. While the territorial dispute between China and India remains unresolved, Beijing has recently signaled its intent to thaw bilateral relations.
How Long Has It Been?
In October, Beijing reached a pact with India to resolve the border conflict. Two months later, both countries resumed the MSRCIBQ, which had been postponed since the Galwan incident. These signals mark Beijing’s intention to move out of the slump in bilateral relations. The absence of meetings in 2011 is not comparable to the hiatus between 2020-2024. Multiple meetings were held within a year during the Manmohan Singh administration. Therefore, the special representatives of China and India do not necessarily meet every year. The schedule stabilized during Manmohan Singh’s second term, establishing that the MSRCIBQ would be held annually.
The period of 2020-2024 has been particularly tense due to the Galwan Valley clash in 2020, which marked a significant low point in China-India relations. This incident led to a prolonged stand-off and an immediate freeze in diplomatic and military dialogues. The resumption of MSRCIBQ meetings after such a significant break indicates a meaningful step towards mending the strained ties. Historically, the MSRCIBQ has served as a critical platform for dialogue, and its regular occurrence signifies a commitment to continuous engagement despite unresolved issues.
Takeaway from the 23rd Meeting
1. Positive Evaluation and Continued Implementation
This point highlights a crucial shift in approach. By agreeing to decouple border issues from broader bilateral relations, both countries are signaling their willingness to compartmentalize disputes and focus on cooperation in other areas. This is significant progress since the Indian side has consistently linked the border issue strongly with the overall Sino-Indian relationship. However, the Chinese side's position has always been that the border issue and bilateral relations should proceed in parallel. The commitment to maintaining peace and tranquility in border areas is a reaffirmation of the agreements made in previous meetings and a pledge to avoid conflict escalation.
2. Pursuing a Fair and Reasonable Solution: The two sides reiterated their commitment to seeking a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable package of solutions to the border issue in accordance with the political guiding principles reached in 2005. This signifies a return to the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence (पंचशील/和平共处五项原则). However, the indivisibility of the China-India border disputes suggests that sector-specific offers are unlikely to be fruitful during negotiations. Issue indivisibility is dangerous because states are prone to make all-or-nothing claims, which make concessions necessary for resolution impossible for both sides.
3. Refining Border Area Control: The two sides assessed the border situation and agreed to refine border area control rules, strengthen trust-building measures, and achieve sustainable peace and tranquility.
4. Strengthening Cross-Border Exchanges: Both sides agreed to strengthen cross-border exchanges and cooperation, including the resumption of Indian pilgrims' pilgrimage to Xizang, cross-border river cooperation, and Nathu La border trade. Cooperation on the Nathu La pass, a previous flashpoint, requires trust-building and healthy mutual perceptions.
5. Enhancing the Special Representative Meeting Mechanism: The two sides agreed to strengthen the construction of the special representative meeting mechanism, enhance coordination and cooperation in diplomatic and military negotiations, and ensure effective follow-up implementation of the special representative meetings.
Beijing’s Sentiment: Back to Bilateral Relations before Galwan
We collected data from 23 MSRCIBQ announcements and analyzed China’s sentiments toward India using the announcement texts. The mean score of sentiment intensity for China’s appraisal and positive sentiments in the meeting announcements fluctuated, with a sharp decrease during Modi’s first term due to Doklam. The mean scores of the 23rd meeting announcement have also dropped compared to previous announcements. This suggests that while China’s sentiments towards India may have improved compared to the historic low in 2017 and the period from 2020-2024, they have roughly returned to the level before the 2020 Galwan incident.
Why Good Signals?
We analyzed the term frequencies of five important keywords: cooperation, development, disagreement, peace, and solve. These keywords are among the most frequent in China’s MSRCIBQ announcements.
• The frequency of "cooperation" was highest in 2003 under Vajpayee III and reached 1% in 2024 under Modi III.
• The frequency of "development" peaked at 3.2% in 2010 under Manmohan Singh II and was 1% in 2024 under Modi III.
• The term "disagreement" appeared in the announcements from 2014, 2016, and 2017, with the highest frequency of 1.63% in 2017 under Modi I.
• The frequency of "peace" was highest at 2.13% in 2010 under Manmohan Singh II, dropped to a historical low of 0.43% in 2018 after Doklam, but increased to 1.5% in 2024, suggesting a more optimistic outlook from China’s perspective compared to the past four years.
• The frequency of "solve" peaked at 3.5% in 2005 under Manmohan Singh I and was roughly 1% in 2024, indicating that resolving the border dispute remains challenging.
Ajit Doval’s meeting with Vice President Han Zheng indicates that MSRCIBQ and the normalization of bilateral ties have received the highest level of attention.
“President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi held a successful meeting not long ago and reached important consensus on improving and developing Sino-India relations. As ancient Eastern civilizations and emerging powers, China and India adhere to independence and autonomy, maintain unity and cooperation, and have global influence and strategic significance. Next year will mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India. The two sides should implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, cultivate political mutual trust, gradually resume institutional dialogues and exchanges and cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, culture, etc., and push the relationship between the two countries back on the track of stable development.”
Beijing continues to signal that improving and developing Sino-Indian relations have been its grand strategy. Implementing the consensus and stabilizing the secondary strategic direction is in the interest of China as Trump’s political comeback is approaching. However, India’s grand strategy may be swinging. China’s signal to stabilize secondary strategic direction may be interpreted as a strategic vulnerability by hawks in New Delhi.
Why MSRCIBQ hasn’t Touched the Core of Dilemma Yet
States often dispute territories for tangible values or intangible reasons. Tangible values include population, economic centers, natural resources, and strategic locations. Intangible reasons encompass religious, linguistic, ethnic, and other cultural ties.
Territorial disputes arising from intangible reasons are usually more dangerous than those caused by tangible values, as tangible values are easier to divide and negotiate.
The western, middle, and eastern sectors of the Sino-India border are neither major cities, economic centers, nor rich in oil. Therefore, the Sino-India border dispute largely arises from a mix of tangible and intangible reasons. The primary tangible reason is the strategic location, while the intangible reasons include historical ownership, unclear jurisdictions, and the integrity of sovereignty.
Intangible reasons, such as historical ownership, make it impossible for China to make any concessions in border disputes. The unclear and ambiguous jurisdictions surrounding the Lines of Actual Control (LAC) further complicate the issue. New Delhi derives its legitimacy from the British Raj’s legacies, which China denies from an anti-colonial perspective. The inconsistent interpretations of international laws and historical documents remain unresolved.
Moreover, the Sino-Indian border dispute is strongly correlated with sovereignty. Each side is unlikely to back down in such scenarios. Any concession made by India may trigger public anxiety about the integrity of its sovereignty, leading to political costs for the Indian government. Similarly, China is unlikely to make any concessions or back down in negotiations.
What’s even worse is the dispute inflation. Territorial disputes tend to inflate with time passing because both sides bake into more collective beliefs, sunk costs, and moral values. People tend to bake more moral language into such disputes for justifications of ownership, making it even more dangerous. Without an efficient deflate strategy, territorial disputes are less likely to be peacefully resolved.
In general, the situation has improved compared to the past four years since the Galwan incident from China’s perspective, which is a positive signal. However, both sides must continue to put effort into building trust to move forward. These recent developments suggest a potential shift towards normalizing bilateral relations, but sustained efforts and concrete actions will be required to achieve lasting peace and cooperation.
Below is the official readout of the recent China-India Boundary Question (MSRCIBQ) I translated it with the help of AI
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/wjbzhd/202412/t20241218_11501563.shtml
On December 18, 2024, the 23rd Meeting of Special Representatives on the China-India Boundary Question was held in Beijing, marking the first meeting between both sides in five years. Chinese Special Representative Wang Yi (Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission) and Indian Special Representative and National Security Advisor Doval held substantive discussions on the boundary question and reached six consensuses, guided by the important understanding reached between the leaders of both countries at the Kazan meeting and maintaining a positive and constructive attitude:
Both sides positively evaluated the resolution plans reached on border-related issues and reaffirmed the need to continue implementation. They agreed that the boundary question should be handled properly from the broader perspective of bilateral relations, preventing it from affecting bilateral ties. Both sides agreed to continue taking measures to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and promote healthy and stable development of bilateral relations.
Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to seek a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable package solution to the boundary question in accordance with the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles agreed upon by the Special Representatives in 2005 and to take positive measures to advance this process.
Both sides assessed the border situation and agreed to further refine the rules for border area management and strengthen confidence-building measures to achieve sustainable peace and tranquility along the border.
Both sides agreed to continue strengthening cross-border exchange and cooperation, promoting the restoration of Indian pilgrims' visits to Tibet, cooperation on transboundary rivers, and border trade at Nathula Pass.
Both sides agreed to further strengthen the Special Representatives' meeting mechanism, enhance coordination between diplomatic and military negotiations, and direct the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) to implement the follow-up work from this meeting.
Both sides agreed to hold the next round of Special Representatives' meetings in India next year, with specific timing to be determined through diplomatic channels.
Additionally, both sides extensively exchanged views on bilateral, international, and regional issues of mutual concern, emphasizing the importance of stable, predictable, and positive China-India relations for international and regional peace and stability.
Thanks, just agree to disagree and move on!
Who has done the best reporting on identifying exactly how this relationship de-escalated, and in particular which side led that de-escalation?