Amid the boisterous carnival of Indian elections, India has intensified engagement with China, with officials of the two Asian powers holding a crucial meeting of their joint border mechanism in Beijing.
The meeting of the joint working mechanism on border affairs, which comprises officials of the ministries of defence and foreign office, will be held in Beijing April 28-29. The decision to schedule a meeting of the border mechanism is a bit of a surprise as the past few weeks have seen top-level meetings between the two sides in which the maintenance of peace and tranquility on the border was repeatedly emphasized.
Significantly, the meeting takes place days after the visit to India by China’s deputy army chief, Lt Gen Qi Jianguo, which saw the two sides agreeing to enhance military-to-military engagements and bolster confidence-measures to ensure peace on the Line of Actual Control, which serves as the de facto border between two of the world’s most populous countries.
The meeting in the middle of the elections in India underlines that the governments in New Delhi and Beijing are leaving nothing to chance to roil the relations and prevent incursions at any cost so that they do not become an electoral issue in India. Foreign policy issues have not figured prominently in the nine-phase elections in India, but India’s chief opposition BJP, which is expected to form the next government in Delhi, is expected to be strident in asserting India’s sovereignty claims over territories which are a matter of contention with China.
More than a year ago, Chinese troops intruded deep into the Indian territory, leading to a three-week diplomatic standoff which severely tested bilateral ties. The incursions pushed the maintenance of border peace as the top priority in India-China relations and led to the signing of a landmark Border Defence Cooperation Agreement during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to Beijing in October last year.
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