Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held “candid and in-depth” talks to ease tensions along their disputed frontier, Beijing said Friday, after a rare face-to-face encounter between the two leaders
Since a violent border clash in the Himalayas in 2020 that resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers, relations between the two most populous nations on earth have been in a deep freeze.
Since then, tens of thousands of soldiers have gathered in large numbers on both sides of the border. They continue despite 19 sessions of negotiations between senior military officials from the two nations.
The leaders met Thursday while attending the BRICS summit in South Africa in what China’s foreign ministry characterised as a “candid and in-depth exchange of views”.
“President Xi stressed that improving China-India relations serves the common interests of the two countries and peoples,” a ministry spokesman said Friday.
“The two sides should bear in mind the overall interests of their bilateral relations and handle properly the border issue so as to jointly safeguard peace.”
India’s foreign secretary said Modi had highlighted unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that divides India’s Himalayan region of Ladakh from Chinese territory, where the deadly 2020 clash took place.
“Modi underlined that… observing and respecting the LAC are essential for normalising India-China relationship,” Vinay Kwatra told reporters Thursday.
India has been concerned of its northern neighbor’s growing military assertiveness, and disagreements over the 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) common border between the two Asian superpowers have frequently resulted in hostilities.
China also considers Tibet to be a part of the entire northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and the two Asian superpowers engaged in a full-scale border conflict there in 1962.
Both nations have frequently accused one another of attempting to annex land along their unrecognized border, known as the Line of Actual Control.
