Decoding the India-China patrolling arrangement: A beginning, no breakthrough

External affairs minister S. Jaishankar was unambiguous. India and China had agreed to a patrolling arrangement in Ladakh, he asserted. Both countries, he added, had gone back to the position they held in 2020; and finally, he suggested that the disengagement process can be said to have been completed.

The statements were rightly hailed as a major ice-breaker ahead of the BRICS summit at Kazan (Russia) this week. The thaw would enable the first one-to-one meeting between PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, it was suggested, and the two leaders did meet at Kazan, though the outcome was underwhelming and less than spectacular.

Now that details have emerged, the agreement means that Indian troops will now be able to resume patrolling up to two kilometres of the area held and claimed by China since 2020 — after duly informing the Chinese side. Similarly, the Chinese troops will be allowed to patrol up to two kilometres into the area held and claimed by India in the disputed area on the border in Ladakh. In addition, local shepherds will be allowed grazing rights on two kilometres of the area held by China.

Once this arrangement helps build up a certain degree of confidence, the two sides will get down to discussing the creation of a four-kilometre buffer zone between the positions held by their respective militaries. There is no clarity on how long this process will take, and it could take years, say experts. So what has India gained, if anything?

Most former diplomats and strategic experts can barely hide their disappointment at the details, but are unanimous in welcoming the positive development. ‘A beginning has been made and something is better than nothing’ is what sums up their reaction. 

Former Indian ambassador to Beijing Nirupama Menon Rao, since retired, posted, “Cross the river feeling the stones. A jointly-verified LAC continues to elude. The Chinese are a hold-out in this regard. But the disengagement deal just reached is a good development. Both sides must consolidate this gain to ensure peace and tranquility in the border areas, also keeping the interests of border populations in Eastern Ladakh in focus.” Another former ambassador to Beijing Gautam Bambawale wrote in the Times of India that India should be cautious and should not trust Beijing.

Author and defence commentator Pravin Sawhney was even more blunt. “The Chinese interlocutors had offered disengagement, patrolling and grazing arrangements to their Indian counterparts at the 31st meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination held in Beijing on August 29. India bided its time to convert this offer into a ‘supposed breakthrough’ to justify Modi’s meeting with Xi on October 23,” Sawhney wrote in The Wire, explaining why the enthusiasm in India at the “breakthrough” was met with indifference by China.

However, even Sawhney agreed that the patrolling arrangement, while effectively not changing anything on the ground and certainly not restoring the status quo ante in Ladakh, is a positive development because it would ensure sustained contact between the two armies. Over a period of time, such contact will hopefully build confidence. More importantly, he emphasised, the fear of a sudden troop movement by China on the border would at least temporarily disappear, perhaps even enabling reduction of troops sitting on an altitude of over 15,000 feet above sea level.

In a video he posted, Sawhney explained why he is pessimistic about the resolution of the border issues. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China occupied Indian territory in response to Indian home minister Amit Shah’s bravado in declaring that Aksai Chin was Indian territory and would be wrested back from the Chinese.

Shah even declared that India would issue new maps showing Aksai Chin as Indian territory. This was not acceptable to China, which also objected to India unilaterally making Ladakh a Union Territory. 

On 19 June 2020, the Indian prime minister told the nation that nobody had encroached into Indian territory, that nobody was sitting on Indian territory. Once the Indian PM had made that statement, Sawhney exclaimed, where was the question of China going back from Indian territory?. What’s more, there is a fundamental dissonance between China and India, with the former claiming that the border stretches 2,000 km while the Indian position is that the border extends to 3, 488 km. To bridge this difference is never going to be easy.

Sawhney, in fact, blames New Delhi for breaking trust. At the Wuhan summit in China in 2018, India had agreed to President Xi’s proposal of an informal summit every year alternating between the two countries. But India was reluctant and it was after much prodding by China that the two leaders met informally in Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu in October 2019. By then, India had fully embraced the US and ignored President Xi’s suggestion that for lasting peace in the region, it would have to be a tripartite engagement, say between India, China and Pakistan.  Predictably, India found this unacceptable.

The meeting in Kazan does not seem to have built much trust and the two countries clearly have a long way to go before restoring a businesslike relationship in the BRICS spirit, if not go back to the days of ‘Hindi-Cheeni bhai-bhai’.