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On December 3, 2024, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar released a statement on “recent developments in the India-China border areas and their implications for our overall bilateral relations.” After reviewing the complicated history of the Aksai Chin region (known as eastern Ladakh in India) since 1962, he concluded, “We are clear that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in border areas is a prerequisite for the development of our ties. In the coming days, we will be discussing both de-escalation as well as effective management of our activities in the border areas.” Though the Chinese government has yet to release its own assessment about the long-disputed area, the United States should encourage both countries to pursue this easing of tensions. Aksai Chin is the only region along China's periphery where the military situation appears to be shifting from constant escalation to a path of resolution through negotiations.
This ongoing thaw in relations was timed to coincide with the formal meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS meeting in Russia on October 23, their first face-to-face encounter since 2019. A few days prior, the two governments reached an agreement to ease tensions in two sectors of the disputed Aksai Chin border region. This agreement was the result of a series of parallel military and diplomatic negotiations that occurred after an unintentional deadly clash in June 2020 in the Galwan River valley on the Line of Actual Control that resulted in increased political friction between the two countries.…
The remainder of this commentary is available at warontherocks.com.
