One of the very positive outcomes of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia last month was the bonhomie that marked the ‘one-on-one’ meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. After their talks, both Modi and Xi pledged to improve bilateral relations and praised their national security advisers and foreign ministers for making progress in resolving territorial disputes in the Himalayas.
This has helped solidify the current phase of the India-China relationship, which now involves six Ds—Disengagement, De-escalation, (re)Deployment, and the first steps toward a possible border Demarcation in Demchok and Depsang—the highest reaches of the cold, sparsely inhabited region of Ladakh.
Both Demchok and Depsang, where disengagement was completed on 30 October, will now be part of Changthang—one of the five new districts (alongside Sham, Nubra, Zanskar, and Drass) being carved out of the Union Territory of Ladakh.
A high-powered committee led by retired IAS officer Pramod Jain, the former chief election officer of Jammu & Kashmir, is looking into the personnel and infrastructure requirements of these new districts. In strategic circles, this move is regarded as a critical step in ensuring last-mile access to India’s remote “first villages” through a network of all-weather roads, 24×7 power, and IT services. The establishment of new heliports and partial outsourcing of logistics also gives a clear signal that India is serious about having ‘boots on the ground’ in the region along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
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India-China agreement in context
For the record, it must be mentioned that while the 2020 Galwan flashpoint led to an enhanced mobilisation of troops on both sides—68,000 soldiers in the Indian account— no bullets were fired from either side even during the four years of escalated tension. The two dozen or so casualties on both sides were caused by fierce hand-to-hand combat between soldiers wrapped in barbed wire, hurling rocks and boulders at each other.
Rhetoric aside, let us look at the hard facts of the India-China relationship. Besides the all-out war in 1962, border skirmishes have been a regular feature since 1959 due to differing interpretations of the McMahon Line—India accepts it, China does not. However, from the early 1990s, after China decided to liberalise its economy, both countries have been taking slow but steady steps toward normalising their relationship.
As things stand today, China is India’s largest trading partner, with imports exceeding $100 billion in 2023-24. Yet, with Indian exports in the range of $14-16 billion, the trade deficit is a whopping $85 billion. For China, India is not even among its top ten trading partners.
However, though China’s GDP is around $18 trillion to India’s $4 trillion, growth trends and demographic dividends seem to be in India’s favour. While China is growing at around 5 per cent per annum, India is recording a robust 7 per cent growth. The ratio of working to dependent population is also clearly in India’s favour.
China, with a defence budget of nearly $300 billion, has the world’s second-largest army, but India is not far behind. We are the fourth largest army, with a defence outlay of about $85 billion.
Both countries are nuclear powers, and also relying on nuclear energy for their electricity grids. They are also both members of multiple multilateral forums, including BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the G20, as well as dialogue partners with the OECD and ASEAN. What’s especially important to note is that India and China have initiated the Depsang-Demchok conversation independently—rather than after prodding from the US, which has an ambivalent relationship with both nations.
Demchok, Depsang & the other Ds
Talking about the ‘Ds’ of the agreement with China, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, after the Modi-Xi bilateral, that the first step was ‘disengagement’ in Depsang and Demchok along the LAC. In this regard, the Indian army had already conducted ‘verification patrolling’. The second phase will involve ‘de-escalation’, which means calibrating the build-up of forces along the LAC. The penultimate step in the process is rationalising the ‘deployment’ of troops by both sides in the fragile ecology of the region.
But before we move to the final issue of ‘demarcation’, let me share a few details about Depsang and Demchok—which are often in the news but where few have ventured.
Except for the very heavy deployment of troops on both sides, not much has changed since British explorer Francis Younghusband’s description of the inhospitable, uninhabited Depsang plains in the late 19th century.
“The Depsang Plains are more than seventeen thousand feet above sea-level, and are of gravel, as bare as a gravel-walk to a suburban villa,” he wrote in The Heart of a Continent. “Away behind us the snowy peaks of Saser and Nubra appeared above the horizon like the sails of some huge ships; but before us was nothing but gravel plains and great gravel mounds, terribly desolate and depressing. Across these plains blew blinding squalls of snow, and at night, though it was now the middle of summer, there were several degrees of frost.”
Unlike Depsang, Demchok is an inhabited village and a military encampment at an altitude of 4,200 metres. Per the 2011 census, it was home to 78 villagers, mostly pastoralists. The village is named after Demchok Karpo, the rocky white peak behind it. After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the LAC separated the village into two parts, with the settlement of Dêmqog—comprising 171 people—falling under the China-administered Tibet Autonomous Region. The two are separated by a narrow strip of land and a stream.
While both India and China are now prioritising infrastructure upgrades, the larger question remains—can this issue ever really be resolved? Informal exchanges between the two habitations are often allowed, except during periods of high tension—which is what the recent agreement has resolved. In fact, just a week after the Modi-Xi handshake, Indian soldiers exchanged sweets with their counterparts from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
But as some strategic analysts have pointed out, disengagement, de-escalation, and (re)deployment are all well and good, demarcation should be the long-term goal. In a DW article, Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, founder and president of the Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies, noted that serious dialogue was needed between Beijing and New Delhi to find ways to demarcate the disputed border. She also emphasised that beyond the economic benefits of cooperation, there are also significant costs of non-cooperation that have to be reckoned with. But this is easier said than done.
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The demarcation challenge
Unlike the Line of Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan—which has been the basis of ceasefires in 1948, 1965, 1971, and 1999—the LAC is a bilateral ‘working understanding’ between India and China without any endorsement from the UN. This makes the arrangement quite tenuous, with both armies often traversing the same terrain during their patrols.
‘Demarcation’ would require political sagacity on both sides, and a situation where India and China see each other as partners rather than adversaries. From a civilisational perspective, the India-China conflict is of fairly recent origin, and today’s Chinese leadership is not as dogmatic as during the times of Mao.
Even though cartographers from both countries have been showing areas under the possession of the other as their own territory, the fact is that the informed public in both nations is well aware of the ground reality. And if the foreign and defence policies of both India and China are based on a realistic assessment of what is ‘possible’, rather than historical hyperbole, there is a chance of the ‘elephant’ and the ‘dragon’ walking hand in hand to pave the way for the Asian century.
Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)