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When Luo Zhaohui, past China’s Ambassador to India, revived the thought of an “early harvest” successful India-China bound negotiations successful 2017, India responded with scepticism. The connection — to settee the Sikkim bound successful isolation from the 3 different sectors — was an asymmetric concession dressed up successful the connection of progress. India has resisted it. There is present a gnawing uncertainty arsenic to whether it tin clasp that position. The trigger for this portion is simply a erstwhile borderline negotiator’s interest that India mightiness “stumble” into a damaging people of enactment nether Chinese unit and driven by the temptation to task contrived progress. Diplomacy that trades semipermanent strategical interests for short-term optics is self-defeating.
New Delhi indispensable beryllium cautious
The readout issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) connected the 24th circular of the Special Representatives’ Dialogue connected the Boundary Question betwixt India and China (on August 19, 2025) betwixt National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recorded India’s statement to “set up an Expert Group ... to research an aboriginal harvest successful bound delimitation successful the India-China borderline areas”. China’s ain readout was much pointed: it utilized the word “demarcation” alternatively than “delimitation” and spoke of “launching bound demarcation negotiations successful sectors wherever conditions are ripe.”
The MEA property merchandise connected the 35th Meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination connected India-China Border Affairs, held successful Beijing connected May 27, 2026, mentions that the 2 sides “discussed issues pertaining to delimitation, borderline management, mechanics gathering and cross-border cooperation” and “agreed to enactment unneurotic to marque substantive preparation” for the adjacent SRs’ meeting. The notation to ‘delimitation’ is important arsenic it suggests follow-up discussions connected the knowing “to research Early Harvest successful bound delimitation”.
The cornerstone of Special Representative negotiations is the Agreement connected Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, signed connected April 11, 2005. Article III explicitly envisages “a bundle settlement” covering each sectors of the India-China boundary. It establishes a three-step process: archetypal governmental parameters, past a model for a last settlement, past delineation and demarcation. Demarcation — placing carnal markers connected the crushed — comes last, not first. China’s connection to statesman demarcation successful a azygous “ripe” assemblage inverts this series and, successful effect, asks India to wantonness the bundle architecture successful speech for the quality of progress. India should decline.
Why does the bundle colony substance truthful much? Because the 4 sectors of the India-China bound are strategically interlinked, requiring springiness and instrumentality crossed sectors. It besides guards against China extracting concessions assemblage by sector. An aboriginal harvest successful Sikkim, wherever India holds comparative geographical advantage, would fto Beijing slope a colony connected its preferred presumption portion leaving the different 3 sectors unresolved.
The Sikkim stakes
The Sikkim Sector bound is not, arsenic sometimes claimed, a elemental matter. Clashes astatine Nathu La and Cho La successful 1967, with dense casualties, showed however crisp these differences are. Article I of the 1890 Great Britain-China Convention identifies “Mount Gipmochi connected the Bhutan frontier” arsenic the starting constituent of the Sikkim-Tibet boundary, but it is preceded by an assertion that the bound “shall beryllium the crest of the upland scope separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu”. China reads the nonfiction arsenic placing the trijunction astatine Gipmochi. India and Bhutan clasp that the trijunction lies astatine Batang La, immoderate 6.5 kilometres to the north, connected the watershed — which is the operative geographical rule successful Article I.
Zompelri (or Jampheri) Ridge adjoining Geymochen commands a nonstop presumption of the Siliguri Corridor, the constrictive portion connecting mainland India to its northeastern States. Any colony implicitly endorsing the Gipmochi trijunction would manus China a ineligible instrumentality to property its assertion to the precise borderline of the Himalayas, exposing the Corridor. The Chinese nonsubjective is to deepen and widen its Chumbi Valley and summation unit connected India’s astir acute territorial vulnerability.
The Doklam magnitude reinforces this concern. Since 2017, China has systematically consolidated its presumption successful occidental Bhutan — gathering roads and subject facilities, constructing villages including Pangda connected the Amo Chu river, and processing routes to the Jampheri Ridge that bypass the 2017 Doklam standoff site. A Sikkim colony would instantly beryllium leveraged by Beijing to measurement up unit connected a susceptible Bhutan to settee its bound with China. India and China person agreed that trijunction points indispensable beryllium finalised successful trilateral consultation with each countries concerned. Even if the trijunction constituent is near out, China could unit Bhutan to settee the remainder of the disputed bound connected its ain presumption and contiguous India with a fait accompli successful Doklam.
Since the Eastern Ladakh transgressions of 2020, China has pursued aggregate unit tracks simultaneously: subject consolidation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), dependable resurrection of the “Zangnan” (South Tibet) communicative to picture Arunachal Pradesh, renaming of places successful Arunachal Pradesh, and enlargement of “border defence villages” adjacent to India-China LAC.
The resumption of Special Representative talks is welcome, but dialog indispensable beryllium conducted with strategical clarity, not nether diplomatic unit oregon for the optics of progress. Three principles should usher India’s approach.
First, clasp the 2005 Agreement’s model firm. The Expert Group agreed upon successful August 2025 indispensable not go a conveyance for an aboriginal harvest successful Sikkim. Agreeing to “explore” is not a committedness to accept. India should cull a standalone Sikkim delimitation oregon demarcation exercise.
Second, marque bid and tranquillity connected the LAC the non-negotiable information of progress. China has periodically attempted to delink borderline absorption from the broader relationship; India has resisted this, and should proceed to bash so. Unilateral alterations to the LAC cannot beryllium normalised. Indeed, the alleged “buffer zones” successful Eastern Ladakh indispensable not beryllium allowed to persist.
Third, property for genuine governmental engagement connected a broad settlement. Decades of talks person shown that the respective narratives cannot beryllium reconciled done ineligible arguments. The 2005 Agreement recognised this: it called for a governmental colony that would “safeguard the captious interests of some countries” and acceptable retired principles specified arsenic the 2 sides “safeguard(ing) owed interests of their settled populations successful the borderline areas”. Any breakthrough requires governmental volition connected some sides. India should property for meaningful bound negotiations, not insubstantial implicit the deficiency of advancement with moving groups. The trial of China’s seriousness volition beryllium whether it is prepared to prosecute connected the model for a broad colony — and whether it is prepared to clasp the LAC unchangeable portion that engagement proceeds. Absent those conditions, the Special Representative process risks becoming what it has sometimes been before: a forum for managing appearances portion China improves its presumption connected the ground.
Stay the course
In bound talks, China has a track-record of cherry-picking and resiling from ceremonial commitments, arsenic it did successful the lawsuit of an explicit statement to get astatine a communal knowing of the LAC aft exchanging maps showing the full alignment. India indispensable forestall the Agreement On the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question from gathering a akin fate. If bid and tranquillity connected the LAC is the instauration for rebuilding India-China relations, the 2005 Agreement is the roadworthy representation for resolving the bound question. India has thing to summation from an aboriginal harvest constricted to Sikkim and indispensable support its negotiating abstraction done a broad negotiation. India cannot spend a shortcut to a destination that suits China.
Ashok K. Kantha is simply a erstwhile Ambassador to China, Subhas Chandra Bose Chair Professor of International Relations, Chanakya University, and Distinguished Fellow with the Vivekananda International Foundation
