Will China restore April 2020 status quo in East Ladakh in July talks?
China wants the Modi government not to hinge the entire bilateral ties on the resolution of the boundary issue while New Delhi expects a forward movement in the forthcoming military commanders dialogue
After a successful 14th BRICS summit, all eyes are on the 16th India-China senior military commanders meeting next month to roll back the May 2020 PLA transgression on critical patrolling point 15 near Khugrang Nullah, a tributary of Shyok river, in the East Ladakh sector.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wirth Indian ambassador to China Pradeep Kumar Rawat.
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Negotiations on restoring the status quo on Khugrang Nullah sector, which lies between the shortest route from Gogra-Hot Springs to Galwan Valley, has been stuck since August 2021 with the PLA refusing to move back a section of its troops forwardly deployed on this point.
China has been giving mixed signals to India with Foreign Minister Wang Yi calling for peaceful resolution of the border issue in his meeting with Pradeep Rawat, Indian Ambassador to Beijing, on June 22. The 50-minute meeting took place after China had blocked the designation of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s second in command Abdul Rehman Makki as UN global terrorist under UNSC resolution 1267. Makki, a close relative of Hafiz Saeed, is a LeT ideologue and an India hater and is responsible for Islamic jihad in Kashmir Valley.
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While India expects a forward movement in the forthcoming military commanders dialogue, China wants the Modi government not to hinge the entire bilateral ties on the resolution of the boundary issue. However, New Delhi through its Ambassador made it clear to Minister Wang Yi that maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is the key to normalization of bilateral ties with restoration of April 2020 status quo in East Ladakh central to normalcy in ties.
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While India expects a forward movement in the forthcoming military commanders dialogue, China wants the Modi government not to hinge the entire bilateral ties on the resolution of the boundary issue. However, New Delhi through its Ambassador made it clear to Minister Wang Yi that maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is the key to normalization of bilateral ties with restoration of April 2020 status quo in East Ladakh central to normalcy in ties.
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Even as India is firm on the restoration of status quo in East Ladakh, it is worried about the fallout of the severe economic crisis in Sri Lanka and Pakistan with China a substantial contributor to external debt of these two Indian neighbors. More than 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s external debt is owed to China and some 27.4 per cent of Pakistan external debt is owed to Beijing. Despite China entrapping these two countries in debt trap by building white elephant infrastructure, Beijing has rather been quiet in helping its clients in South Asia. This is in sharp contrast to India, which has openly come out in support of falling Sri Lankan economy by pumping in close to USD five billion. Both Pakistan and Sri Lanka are today negotiating with IMF to get loans for both importing fuel and foodstuffs.
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.
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