Amicable ties between China and India will also contribute to a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world, say PM Modi and President Xi
Meeting on the margins of the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on Wednesday (October 23, 2024), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed that stable India-China ties will have a positive impact on regional and global peace as well as prosperity.

Prime Minister Modi, on his part, also underscored the importance of handling differences and disputes properly and not allowing them to disturb peace and tranquility.

“We believe that the importance of India-China relations is not just for our people. Our relations are also important for global peace, stability and progress. Mutual Trust, Mutual Respect, and Mutual Sensitivity should continue to be the basis of our relations,” Prime Minister Modi said.

The two leaders affirmed that stable, predictable, and amicable bilateral relations between India and China, as two neighbours and the two largest nations on earth, will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity. They added that this will also contribute to a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said after the meeting.

They underlined the need to progress bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, enhance strategic communication and explore cooperation to address developmental challenges, the MEA added.

This was the first bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi in five years. They last met for an informal Summit in Mahabalipuram in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in October 2019.

The meeting in Kazan came two days after Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced that India and China have reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the India-China border, leading to disengagement.

During their meeting, the two leaders agreed that the Special Representatives on the India-China boundary question will meet at an early date to oversee the management of peace & tranquility in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question. The relevant dialogue mechanisms at the level of Foreign Ministers and other officials will also be utilized to stabilize and rebuild bilateral relations, the MEA stated.

The agreement on patrolling along the border areas has led to a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020, Foreign Secretary Misri stated on October 21, 2024. He explained that Indian and Chinese negotiators at the diplomatic and military levels have been in close contact with each other over the last several weeks in a variety of forums.  

Responding to questions at a special media briefing in Kazan on Tuesday (October 22, 2024), Foreign Secretary Misiri elaborated on what the two sides had agreed upon: “In the pending areas under discussion, patrolling and indeed grazing activities, wherever applicable, will revert to the situation as it obtained in 2020”.

“As far as the disengagement agreements reached previously are concerned, those agreements were not reopened in these discussions. The agreement that was reached yesterday, very early yesterday morning, was focused on issues that had remained outstanding in the last couple of years,” the Indian Foreign Secretary stated.

Asked about how future face-offs or clashes could be prevented, Foreign Secretary Misri stated, “Our hope and effort will be that the arrangements that have been worked out and agreed upon are such that they can prevent the kind of clashes that occurred earlier in some areas near the Line of Actual Control. We will need to monitor this closely and continue to make efforts to ensure that the mechanisms and agreements are such that these clashes can be avoided”.

“We are focused on disengagement first, and discussions on de-escalation and de-induction will happen at the appropriate time,” he explained in response to another question.