The Special Representatives (SRs) Mechanism on the India-China Boundary Question completed 25 rounds of talks when China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Beijing on August 25, 2026. Initiated in 2003, it operates above all other levels of engagement between the two sides, including technical, military, and expert levels that were operationalized since the 1980s. Alongside periodic summits, SRs represent the highest channel of dialogue between the two Asian giants for boundary negotiations, empowered by their respective political leaderships, giving them a broad strategic mandate to deliberate on.
The two sides agreed on “an early and substantial harvest of boundary delimitation” that would follow the mutual agreement of their respective “Terms of Reference,” as indicated by point number 3 of the eight-point outcome document. Both sides also agreed to set up new military hotlines in the eastern and middle sectors of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and two new meeting points on the ground for military commander-level talks, inter alia.
The most significant outcome of the SR talks since its inception is the 2005 agreement on “Political Parameters and Guiding Principles.” It remains foundational to all future negotiations and calls for a final “package settlement” covering all sectors of the boundary. In contrast, the latest 2026 outcome statement envisions a ‘piecemeal and incremental approach,’ deviating from the original 2005 position of a sweeping settlement and is likely to focus first on the least contested middle and eastern sectors, leaving the western sector for resolution at later stages. This can also be read as a tactical realignment by New Delhi to bring Beijing’s long-held preferences on board and to keep the negotiations afloat towards an early resolution.
Mending fences, one step at a time
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Cross-border trade through three designated Himalayan passes resumed in August after a gap of six years. In February, India’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, met China’s Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu for a “strategic dialogue” on the sidelines of the BRICS Sherpa meeting in New Delhi. As tensions eased at the LAC, New Delhi even allowed four Chinese power equipment manufacturers to participate in government tenders for critical power projects by waiving clearance requirements that were put in place after the deadly 2020 Galwan incident.
India and China are fellow members in the BRICS and SCO groupings, and these positive developments come ahead of the SCO summit in Bishkek and the BRICS summit in New Delhi, where Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice in two weeks. The two sides are also exploring new frameworks for business exchanges and investments. Ending a four-year military standoff, India and China reached an agreement on border patrolling arrangements in October 2024 that laid the groundwork for the Modi-Xi rendezvous in Kazan in 2024 and later in Tianjin in 2025 on the sidelines of the BRICS/SCO summits.
Even as both sides continue to broaden deliberations, overlapping perceptions of the border have hindered progress on a final settlement of the boundary question for decades now. The SR talks mechanism consists of three stages, beginning with an agreement on guiding principles and political parameters, which was successfully concluded in 2005. The next stage involves building a framework for settlement, followed by the final stage of delineation of the boundary on the map and its demarcation on the ground. The second and third stages are yet to be completed, and the baton of its resolution is moving from one generation of leaders and negotiators to the other on both sides.
A subtle distinction
The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is considered the world’s longest ‘undemarcated land border,’ and it differs from the related term ‘International Boundary’ (IB). The latter refers to a permanent, mutually recognized line, which is yet to materialize in the case of the India-China border, while the former was first used in 1959 by then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in a letter to his Indian counterpart Jawaharlal Nehru, describing the area up to which both sides exercised control. While Zhou blamed British imperialism for leaving behind undefined and controversial borders, Nehru insisted that existing treaty-based boundaries should be respected.
After three years, the LAC practically came into existence on the ground following the 1962 war, denoting the military positions held by the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at the end of the war. Technical and expert-level talks between the two sides have been happening since 1981, followed by the operationalization of a Joint Working Group (JWG) mechanism soon after the landmark visit of India’s then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988. The LAC got official recognition in 1993 with the inking of the Peace and Tranquility Agreement (BPTA) during the visit of India’s then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao to China, although its exact position was not jointly defined or demarcated.
Towards building confidence
Three years after signing the BPTA, in 1996, a new agreement on Military Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) was signed during President Jiang Zemin’s visit to India, the first by a Chinese paramount leader to India. The two sides agreed not to use their military capability to attack the other or engage in large-scale military exercises aimed at each other. Opening fire and using explosives within two kilometers of the LAC was also prohibited. It also mandated advance notification of troop levels, movements, and exercises near the border.
Notably, both sides agreed to exchange maps to align their perceptions of the LAC. Although this process has shown some progress in the initial years, particularly with regard to the less-contested middle sector, when maps of the western sector were exchanged, perceptions diverged profoundly, bringing the process to a halt altogether in 2002. Any boundary delimitation exercise requires resuming this process to proceed ahead. Later, in 2003, both sides signed a “Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation” during the visit of India’s then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to China that year.
Again, three years later, in April 2005, an additional protocol on modalities for the implementation of CBMs and a set of guiding principles were also agreed upon by the two sides, including safeguards to “settled populations” in the border areas. Through these pacts, both sides reaffirmed their support for a “fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable settlement” of the boundary question by facilitating the process of “early clarification and confirmation of alignment” of the LAC. In the same year, China recognized Sikkim as part of India.
And then in 2012, the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India‑China Border Affairs (WMCC) was set up following the 15th round of SR talks with a mandate to monitor real-time issues related to the border, consisting of both diplomatic and military representatives. However, it does not discuss or negotiate the final resolution of the overall boundary question, a task that comes under the purview of the SR mechanism. The WMCC has held 36 rounds of talks as of 2026. In 2013, the two sides signed another agreement on defense cooperation (BDCA) to prevent further escalation after the Depsang standoff that year. But recurring standoffs and skirmishes during 2014-2022 and mounting strategic mistrust cast a shadow on these understandings reached by the two sides.
Hurdles ahead for reconciliation
While New Delhi views Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin as part of Ladakh, Beijing claims the entirety of India’s Arunachal Pradesh state as southern Tibet. India’s perceived LAC is 3,488 km long, while China perceives it as only 2,000 km. Reconciling this difference without hurting optics at home is the biggest challenge for boundary delimitation talks ahead.
China has been assigning new names to various places in Arunachal Pradesh, which New Delhi strongly rejects. Between 2017 and 2026, China did this renaming exercise six times by releasing its own list of places in the state, inviting a strong Indian response every single time. Recently, India assigned local standard names to places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to counter the Chinese cultural expansionist narrative.
Another means of China asserting its claim on the Indian state is by issuing stapled visas to its residents instead of stamped ones, thereby refusing to recognize Indian sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh. China has also been involved in building new villages and critical infrastructure with both civilian and military use, including hydropower projects, close to the Arunachal border, which India views with suspicion and perceives as an imminent threat. China has built around 628 such dual-use structures along the entire LAC, supposedly to strengthen its forward position in the event of a future conflict scenario.
China’s ongoing development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and its support to Islamabad with arms supplies and real-time intelligence during the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict also led to a trust deficit in broader bilateral ties. While China wants to place the border issue at an appropriate place in the overall India-China relations, India views it as a necessary imperative for complete normalization.
However, the current volatility in global economic and geopolitical dynamics, including the Strait of Hormuz crisis, the ongoing Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, and the U.S. unilateral tariffs regime under President Donald Trump, has nudged India and China to find common ground to work together towards building a multipolar world. But China’s unilateral actions in its own maritime neighborhood against its Southeast Asian neighbors contradict this imperative.
Today, elements of both competition and cooperation are two sides of the same coin in almost all bilateral relations, and India-China ties are no exception. Power asymmetry on the military, economic, and technological fronts makes it even more complicated. Breakthroughs happen as a result of sustained engagement over time. As history shows, the current phase of rapprochement cannot be taken for granted, and the reconciliation process underway has a long road ahead to come into fruition.
