China-India border talks back on ... but is this the road to resolution?
China’s representatives will travel to India for talks this month but they have a tough task to rebuild trust, observers warn
China and India will resume suspended border talks soon, with top Chinese diplomats set for their first fence-mending visits to India since the military stand-off near the desolate Himalayan frontier.
The trips by Foreign Minister Wang Yi and State Councillor Yang Jiechi – more than three months after the worst border row between the two countries in nearly three decades – showed that both Beijing and New Delhi intended to get ties back on track, observers said.
But they cautioned that it would take more than one or two visits to secure any tangible results and bridge the gaping deficit of trust between two Asian powers apparently destined for strategic competition and rivalry.
Wang will attend a trilateral meeting with his counterparts from India and Russia in Delhi on Monday to discuss “major international and regional issues of common interest and trilateral practical cooperation”.
The meeting, originally scheduled for earlier this year, is believed to have been postponed after China protested against the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s trip to Arunachal Pradesh in April.