India, China border talks tomorrow; Hot Springs de-escalation possible

While India will welcome the de-escalation from Hot Springs after the Gogra agreement in the previous round of military dialogue, New Delhi wants continued discussions to resolve patrolling rights in Depsang Bulge and Charding Nullah Junction.

Published on: Oct 9, 2021, 13:03:37 IST

By Shishir Gupta, hindustantimes.com, New Delhi

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A meeting between India’s Ladakh Corps Commander and Chinese South Xinjiang military district commander is expected to take place on Sunday at Chushul with de-escalation from patrolling point 15 or general area Hot Springs on the agenda. According to people familiar with the matter, the senior military commanders will take up remaining points of friction in East Ladakh, including Depsang Bulge and Charding Nullah Junction in South Demchok, one at a time. If the two decide to come to an agreement (most plausible) on de-escalation from Hot Springs, the PLA aggression of May 2020 will be reversed with the status quo intact in East Ladakh. As of now, some 50 PLA personnel are ahead for their positions at patrolling point 15 with an equal number of Indian Army troops facing them at a distance.

Some 50 PLA personnel are ahead for their positions at patrolling point 15 with an equal number of Indian Army troops facing them at a distance.  (ANI Photo)

Even though the military situation has eased out between the two sides as compared to last year, the PLA has still deployed more than two divisions and a number of combined arms brigades. The Indian Army also has matching deployments with the air force on standby from both sides. “If de-escalation from PP 15 is reached on Sunday, then both India and China can work towards de-induction of troops from the East Ladakh theatre after 16 months,” said a Beijing watcher.

While India will welcome the de-escalation from Hot Springs after the Gogra agreement in the previous round of military dialogue, New Delhi wants continued discussions to resolve patrolling rights in Depsang Bulge and Charding Nullah Junction so that all pin-pricks along the 1597km long Ladakh LAC are removed.

While there has been recent excitement within the media over PLA transgressions in Barahoti Plains in Central Sector and Tawang in the eastern sector, the armies on both sides have taken them as routine annual fall-outs of an undefined border. However, India has made it very clear that normalcy in bilateral relations is totally dependent on peace and tranquillity along the 3488km LAC with PLA directed to desist from making any unilateral changes on the ground.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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