Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held “candid and in-depth” talks to ease tensions along their disputed frontier, Beijing said on Friday, after a rare face-to-face encounter between the two leaders.
Since a violent border confrontation in the Himalayas in 2020 that resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers, relations between the two most populous nations in the world have been severely strained.
Since then, tens of thousands of soldiers have gathered in large numbers on each side of the border. They continue despite 19 sessions of negotiations between senior military officials from the two nations.
The presidents had a “candid and in-depth exchange of views” on Thursday during their meeting at the BRICS summit in South Africa, according to China’s foreign ministry.
According to a ministry spokeswoman, President Xi “emphasized that bettering China-India relations serves the common interests of the two countries and peoples.”
“The two sides should handle the border issue properly and keep in mind the overall goals of their bilateral relations in order to jointly preserve peace.”
The deadly 2020 conflict took place near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which separates China’s territory from India’s Ladakh area in the Himalayas. According to India’s foreign secretary, Modi brought attention to these outstanding issues.
Vinay Kwatra told reporters on Thursday that “Modi underlined that… observing and respecting the LAC are essential for normalizing India-China relations.”
India has been cautious of the increasing military assertiveness of its northern neighbor, and disagreements over the 3,500-kilometer common border between the two Asian superpowers have frequently resulted in hostilities.
China also claims all of India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, considering it part of Tibet, and the Asian giants fought a full-scale border war there in 1962.
Both countries have regularly accused each other of trying to seize territory along their unofficial divide, known as the Line of Actual Control.
The clash in 2020 along the border dividing Tibet from India’s state of Ladakh led to a sharp deterioration in relations.
Modi’s government has pumped billions of dollars into connectivity projects on its side of the border to boost civilian presence, and establish new paramilitary battalions.
It also aspires to forge stronger connections with Western nations, such as fellow Quad members Australia, Japan, and the United States, who are actively courting it as a rival to China.
The border conflicts have not been resolved after 19 rounds of military negotiations between Beijing and New Delhi, including the most recent earlier this month.
Since the conflicts in 2020, Xi and Modi have both participated in a number of global diplomatic gatherings.
But Thursday marked the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since a brief interaction at the G20 Summit in Bali last November.
SOURCE: DAWN NEWS
