India-China special representative dialogue to focus on managing Line of Actual Control

The India-China special representative dialogue on boundary resolution will be held outside Beijing between Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on November 23-25 with the focus on managing the 3,488 kilometre Line of Actual Control.

Updated on: Oct 13, 2018, 08:11:06 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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The India-China special representative (SR) dialogue on boundary resolution will be held outside Beijing between Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on November 23-25 with the focus on managing the 3,488 kilometre Line of Actual Control (LAC) and preventing any Doklam-like flare-ups in the future. The venue of the dialogue is to be decided.

National security advisor Ajit Doval is in constant touch with Chinese state councilor Wang Yi to ensure that there is no misunderstanding on the borders or on a global matter such as the Indo-Pacific or Afghanistan. (AFP/File Photo)

According to the diplomats based in New Delhi and Beijing, the 21st round of dialogue will not discuss any new initiatives with the Indian general elections five months away, but focus on reviewing the decisions made in earlier rounds of talks with a bilateral commitment to keep the LAC incident-free and peaceful.

The ambit of the special representative dialogue has grown beyond the initial focus of boundary resolution since 2009, and the diplomats said there is a possibility that the two interlocutors may touch the ramifications of US-China trade war as well as mounting trade deficit on the Indian side in its dealings with China.

The Strategic Economic Dialogue between NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and his Chinese counterpart is already seized of the trade issues.

The special representative dialogue is significant as Wang Yi is senior to the foreign minister of China and Ajit Doval virtually heads the national security establishment including the high-power Defence Planning Group and Strategic Policy Group.

While the hotline between India’s and China’s defence ministers is a work in progress, Doval is in constant touch with Councilor Wang to ensure that there is no misunderstanding on the borders or on a global matter such as the Indo-Pacific or Afghanistan.

The meeting of the two will also follow the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang at the East Asia summit on November 13-15.

After the Doklam flare-up last year was addressed by some deft diplomacy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Peoples Liberation Army and the Indian Army have held numerous border meetings to contain tempers, and trans-LAC incursions by the PLA have come down by 20% this year as compared to 2017.

The Indian Army too has taken a step further by not deploying battalions posted on the aggressive Line of Control with Pakistan to the China border.

“The next special representative dialogue comes at a critical juncture for both India and China as the international situation, both in its political and security dimensions, is undergoing unexpected shifts and will impact both countries. There is an opportunity to revisit the boundary issue but more importantly to look for opportunities to work together on regional and global issues of common concern,” said Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and an expert on China.

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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