India-China NSAs to take Ladakh talks forward

The special representatives of India and China will meet in Beijing this week, with national security adviser Ajit Doval travelling to the Chinese capital on Tuesday-Wednesday, in what would be the first meeting between NSAs under the SR mechanism after a hiatus of four years.

NSA Doval's China visit is expected to be followed by external affairs minister S Jaishankar and foreign secretary Vikram Misri's trip to Washington DC later this month, to engage with the team of President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the inauguration, it has been learnt.

The SR meeting in Beijing will be followed by a foreign secretary-deputy minister level meeting to fine-tune the way forward in the relationship after the disengagement along the border in Ladakh.


Last week, Jaishankar informed Parliament that the Indian military would be going to all patrolling points of Depsang in Ladakh and to the eastward limit which have historically been India's patrolling limit.

The SR-level meeting will focus on de-escalation and the larger boundary question besides various aspects of geopolitics. The SR mechanism was set up when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister and was aimed at addressing the boundary dispute.

The 32nd meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was held here earlier this month to prepare for the next edition of the SR mechanism meeting.

The two sides positively affirmed the implementation of the most recent disengagement agreement, which completed the resolution of the issues that emerged in 2020, officials said. This was the first WMCC meeting since the border agreement and the Kazan meeting.

The NSAs last met in St Petersburg this year on the sidelines of the BRICS NSA meet. But that was not in the SR mechanism format.