Top officials of India and China have agreed to work on identifying less contentious sections of their contested border for delimitation as part of a broader process toward resolving their longstanding boundary dispute.

A special group of negotiators will identify these less disputed parts of the border and delimit them, a joint statement released on August 26 said. The statement came a day after India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing for talks. Doval and Wang are the designated special representatives of their two countries for the boundary talks mechanism, which was established in 2003 to address the border dispute.

At the talks in Beijing, India and China also agreed to two new military hotlines in the eastern and middle sections of their border and two new meeting points for military commander-level interactions to immediately deal with any tensions that arise along their 3,500 km-long border. Officials of the two countries will meet next month to discuss issues related to trans-border rivers as they look to take their relationship forward after ties sank to a six-decade low during the June 2020 Galwan clash.

“The two sides agreed that any situation on the ground would be addressed promptly through existing diplomatic and military channels,” the statement, which listed eight outcomes, said. The emphasis was on stabilizing the border and ensuring that any tensions that surface are defused before they impact the larger relationship.

“The two sides discussed ways to improve understanding of LAC [Line of Actual Control, the de facto border] in appropriate areas, for better border management,” it said. This is a key outcome given that differing perceptions of where the border lies have been the principal source of friction between the countries.

There was agreement on maintaining peace and tranquility along the border and on creating “an atmosphere for healthy and steady development of bilateral relations,” the joint statement said. India has stated multiple times that peace on the border was a pre-requisite for progress in other areas of the China-India bilateral relationship, such as economic engagement.

The two countries said they were committed to finding a solution to their vexed boundary problem based on a 2005 pact that says the final agreement would be a “package settlement” that would cover the entire border – the western, middle, and eastern sections. The 2005 pact also provides for both countries to “safeguard due interests of their settled populations in the border areas.”

India has been particularly keen that the solution to border tensions with China be a comprehensive one, covering the entire stretch of the border rather than selected areas seen as easier to resolve. Moreover, some of these areas with easier resolution prospects are also ones where India holds a military advantage vis-a-vis China.

The joint statement was issued a day after the two countries put out separate readouts of their talks, which was taken as a sign that the two countries were far apart on key issues. The release of the joint statement has set at rest doubts that differences had outweighed points of agreement.

The China-India talks come against the backdrop of an increasingly unstable world order where the United States is seen as an inward-looking and unreliable partner. Previously, India had perceived the U.S. as a hedge against China’s growing assertiveness in Asia. India views China as its principal long-term adversary. However, New Delhi has been at the receiving end of Donald Trump’s tariffs and other punitive measures over the past year. Consequently, India is adopting an “America Plus” strategy that includes outreach to countries and groups like Japan, the European Union, Russia and China, said security affairs analyst C. Raja Mohan, in an article in the Foreign Affairs magazine.

C. Uday Bhaskar, a retired commodore of the Indian Navy and currently director at the Society for Policy Studies think tank in New Delhi, noted that a joint statement after talks between special representatives of India and China on border issues was “rare.” “This time, an eight-point text was actually agreed within 18 hours, which signals political intent at the highest level to lock in stability ahead of a packed fortnight,” he said in a recent opinion piece. The delay in issuing the eight-point document was symptomatic of what defines China-India relations currently — “deeply embedded wariness,” he added.

The Doval-Wang talks set the stage for the upcoming meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at two summits over the coming fortnight: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit at Bishkek on August 31-September 1 and the India-chaired meeting of the BRICS countries in New Delhi on September 12-13.

Xi is expected to travel to India for the BRICS meet, although Beijing has not announced the visit yet. It will be his first visit to India since 2019.

The move toward a rapprochement amid simmering tensions along the LAC triggered by the Galwan clashes began in 2024 with India and China announcing the pull back of troops from close proximity along border points in Eastern Ladakh, high up in the Himalayas. Indian and Chinese troops are now disengaged, i.e. no longer in close proximity to each other, but they are yet to move back to peacetime positions. This means that neither side has de-escalated deployment as yet.

Modi and Xi have met on two occasions since the disengagement of troops – in Kazan in Russia on the sidelines of the 2024 BRICS summit and on the margins of the China-hosted SCO summit in Tianjin last year.

Meanwhile, the two sides have acted to resume connectivity; travel woes have eased and airlines have resumed flights.

News reports suggest that India and China are exploring new ways to facilitate business-to-business exchanges with India aiming to attract Chinese investments. Some of these announcements could be made when Xi lands in New Delhi for the BRICS summit.

Earlier this year, India amended the rules allowing easier investment flows from China after tightening rules in 2020. India sees increased investments from China as a way to cut down its ballooning trade deficit with Beijing.

With a goal to become a developed economy by 2047, India is looking for investments, technology, and ways to boost its manufacturing. With Trump making the U.S. an unreliable partner and India looking at other partners to fill the void, China next door has emerged a real possibility.

“We are not in the 1991 world,” where there was only one superpower — the United States, Atul Aneja, a former correspondent of The Hindu in Beijing, told The Diplomat. “Today’s world is a multipolar world. There is China, Russia, and others. Power is fragmented and that is reflected in the change of character of global power system. In this scenario, India needs to engage with China,” he said.

India’s outreach to China comes against the backdrop of Beijing’s mounting military and economic support to India’s archrival, Pakistan, on many occasions. There is also concern in New Delhi over China’s propensity to weaponize supply chains, i.e., to stop export of key products that India’s economy is dependent on. Beijing’s sudden halt of fertilizer exports to India is a case in point.

While China is seeking increased access to India’s market for its electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, news reports suggest that China is reluctant to transfer EV battery technology to Indian businesses. Indian companies are also reportedly struggling to obtain rare earth magnets from China, with restrictions first noticed in April 2025.

All this suggests India’s rapprochement with China isn’t likely to be smooth or straightforward. While it is in India’s national interests to seek out Chinese investments, Beijing would definitely seek a bigger footprint for its businesses in India. But it seems doubtful that Beijing would greenlight technology transfers or move to build up India, given that Delhi is a potential challenger to China’s Asian and global ambitions in the future.