India China border / India, China senior commanders may meet again for disengagement: MEA

NEW DELHI: Talks between senior diplomats of India and China on Friday on lowering military tensions did not yield any visible breakthrough though they held out hopes of senior military commanders being able to find a way out of the current impasse during a meeting at a future date.

It was unclear how long the meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) lasted on Friday. The Indian side was led by Naveen Srivastava, Joint Secretary (East Asia) from the Ministry of External Affairs, while the Chinese delegation was led by Hong Liang, Director General of the Boundary and Oceanic Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Friday’s talks were seen as a means to speed up the disengagement and de-escalation process started earlier this month after they hit a roadblock. There has been no progress in the past 10 days, say people familiar with the matter. Indian and Chinese troops who were standing eyeball to eyeball have moved back at two friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh as per agreements reached between senior military commanders previously creating a buffer zone of 4-10 kilometres wide. But Chinese soldiers have not withdrawn as agreed to, in two other areas. At Patrolling Point 17 A, the Chinese have pulled back about one kilometer and stopped while on the Pangong Tso lake, they are still holding the ridgelines at Finger 4 and not moved back beyond Finger 5, according to the people cited above. India’s demand has been that the Chinese withdraw to positions they were holding before May when the intrusions first began.

An Indian statement at the end of the talks said the two sides “agreed that early and complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and de-escalation from India-China border areas…. and full restoration of peace and tranquility was essential for smooth overall development of bilateral relations."

“It was necessary for both sides to sincerely implement the understandings reached between Senior Commanders in their meetings till date," it said referring to four rounds of talks at the military level held on 6 June, 22 June, 30 June and 14 July.

“The two sides agreed that another meeting of the Senior Commanders may be held soon so as to work out further steps to ensure expeditiously complete disengagement and de-escalation and restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas," it added.

The Indian statement on Friday is similar to previous statements and the fact “the statements are the same over the period of time suggest that progress is very slow and not to the satisfaction of India whose main demand has been the restoration of status quo ante," said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University.

What will be interesting to watch would be the developments in the South China Sea, he said pointing a speech made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier on Friday in which he said the US’ China policy was a “failure." In recent weeks, at least two US carrier strike groups have been in the South China Sea. And earlier this week the Indian Navy and the US navy engagement in passage exercises or “Passex" as the US Navy’s USS Nimitiz as it crossed the Indian Ocean in a subtle signal to China.

New reports quoted Pompeo as calling for the creation of a bloc, what he termed “a new grouping of like-minded nations - a new alliance of democracies," to oppose China, although he was not specific about which countries should join.

If tensions in the South China Sea increase, the Chinese would need to focus on that more than the Indian border, Kondapalli said adding that this could spur disengagement.