India and China have agreed to step up efforts for the disengagement of troops and de-escalation of tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) after a conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on August 24.
The meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi took place on August 23, sources said, as the two leaders attended the BRICS summit in Johannesburg along with leaders from Brazil, Russia and South Africa. However, the announcement of the talks was kept under wraps until the next day, just prior to the PM’s departure for Greece.
While the Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi had spoken briefly on the sidelines of the Bali G-20 summit dinner last year about the need to “stabilise the LAC”, this is the first such conversation in the last three years where the two leaders spoke at some length on resolving the issue. A military standoff has been underway along the LAC since April 2020, after transgressions by the Chinese military and the killings that followed at Galwan in eastern Ladakh. The conversation between the two leaders could represent a thaw in ties that have been in limbo since the beginning of the standoff, with Indian officials maintaining that there could be no “business as usual” while the LAC situation persists.
