Doval-Wang talks today, China says ready to work with India, enhance trust

Responding to a query on the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told the media: “China stands ready to work with India to deliver on important common understandings reached between our two leaders, enhance mutual trust and mutual confidence through dialogue and communication, honour our commitments and promote our bilateral relations to go back to the sound and steady growth.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry statements did not make any reference to the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, now in its fifth year, but focused on “important common understandings” and “honour commitments” — a reference to the border patrolling arrangement announced on October 21 and the subsequent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on October 23.

Doval and Wang will hold the 23rd round of talks between the Special Representatives. They are expected to discuss a range of issues to rebuild bilateral ties which dived south following Chinese incursions in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

This SR-level meeting comes less than a fortnight after India and China held official-level talks in New Delhi, following troop disengagement at two friction points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

On Monday night, the Ministry of External Affairs said, “As agreed during the meeting of the two leaders in Kazan on October 23, the two SRs will discuss the management of peace and tranquility in the border areas and explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”.

After the Modi-Xi meeting in Kazan, their first after five years, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November, followed by a meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on China-India Border Affairs (WMCC).

The WMCC meeting in New Delhi on December 5 “reflected on the lessons” learnt from the border standoff and emphasised the need for “effective border management” and “maintenance of peace and tranquillity”.

The two sides agreed to revive several dialogue mechanisms, including the dialogue between Special Representatives on the boundary question. The last round of the SR-level talks took place in New Delhi in December 2019.

Formed in 2003 to comprehensively address the dispute of the India-China border spanning 3,488 km, the SR mechanism has over the years met 22 times.