India and China hold 20th round of border talks

India and China on Friday held special representative level talks on key aspects related to border issues.

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi met along with senior officials for the 20th round of the IndiaChina border talks.

“Shri Ajit Doval, National Security Adviser, and the Special Representative of India and Mr Yang Jiechi, State Councillor and Member of Politburo of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee and Special Representative of China holding the 20th Meeting of SRs in New Delhi,” tweeted external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar.

During the day-long talks, the Doklam episode and other concerns pertaining to unresolved issues of boundary between India and China are expected to be discussed.

The Doklam standoff began on June 16 over People’s Liberation Army’s plans to build a road in an area claimed by Bhutan after the Indian troops intervened to stop it as it posed a security risk to Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor connecting India with its North-eastern states.

The standoff ended on August 28 following mutual agreement between India and China.

China and India institutionalised the SR mechanism in 2003, envisaging it as a threestep process.

New Delhi and Beijing reached an agreement on guiding principles and setting political parameters for a settlement in 2005.

The two neighbours are now negotiating the second phase of working out a settlement framework, and the final step will be drawing a border line based on the framework agreement.

The talks in New Delhi this week will continue from the 10th round of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC), initiated in 2012 to maintain peace along the disputed border, held in Beijing in November.

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