India-China disengagement: Hectic negotiations led to restoration of patrolling rights

The Narendra Modi government has managed to convince the Xi Jinping regime to restore its patrolling rights in Depsang Bulge area and CNN Junction in Demchok.

After four years, and four months, 17 rounds of meetings of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs, 21 rounds of military dialogue, and long-drawn, tedious and difficult negotiations at diplomatic and political levels, the Narendra Modi government has managed to convince the Xi Jinping regime to restore its patrolling rights in Depsang Bulge area and Charding Ningling Nullah (CNN) Junction in Demchok leading to disengagement of forces at these friction points and resolution of a dispute that arose in May 2020 in East Ladakh.

File photo of a man walking inside a conference room, used for meetings between military commanders of China and India, on the Indian side of the Indo-China border at Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh in November 2009.(Reuters)

The patrolling agreement is also a win for the Chinese PLA as India had blocked Chinese patrols since the 2020 in some other some sectors along the LAC. This will be clarified by both the sides in coming days. The patrolling agreement signals disengagement of Indian Army and the PLA at friction points along the 3,488km Line of Actual Control is complete, with the next steps being de-escalation and normalisation through relocation of forwardly deployed forces to their barracks.

While the Modi government remains tight-lipped about the details, HT learns that the patrolling agreement proposal was broadly framed after the last round of WMCC and military dialogue but was awaiting political approval from the Chinese side. Apart from political dialogue at the foreign minister and National Security Adviser level, multiple rounds of WMCC and military dialogue have taken place to bring both sides on the same page.

The agreement was finally reached after the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) of the Indian Army and his counterpart in PLA confirmed that a patrolling agreement had been implemented on the ground in East Ladakh while on ground verification in other sectors is still on. To ensure the implementation was foolproof, the Indian side first exchanged written proposals and then saw it implemented on ground in East Ladakh before allows PLA patrolling rights in other sectors.

After PLA’s transgressions in East Ladakh in May 2020, the Chinese Army blocked the Indian Army’s patrolling in Depsang Bulge (patrolling points 10 to 13) by heavily deploying forces at Jeevan and Raki Nullah, the ingress routes to the bulge area. Similarly, PLA deployed additional forces at the CNN junction, as a result of which the Indian Army could not cover all the 65 patrolling points in East Ladakh fixed by the Cabinet Secretary way back in 1976.

While buffer zones were created at friction points in Galwan, Khugrang, Gogra-Hot Springs and Pangong Tso to ensure that the two heavily deployed armies were apart, the resumption of patrolling is a huge victory for the Modi government as both Depsang and Demchok have legacies dating back to 1962 war.

With Prime Minister Modi and President Xi likely to meet at the Kazan BRICS summit on October 22 and 23, experts say there is a chance that the two leaders will take the next logical step of pulling back forces from the LAC as part of de-escalation as there are some 200,000 troops, tanks, artillery, rocket regiment and missiles deployed on both sides. Once the de-escalation is complete, India and China can move towards normalisation of ties.