On December 18, 2024, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met in Beijing as part of the 23rd round of Special Representatives negotiations to resolve India and China’s long-standing border disputes. With the last meeting taking place in 2019, this one was a major step in restarting communication after a five-year break.
Building political mutual trust and progressively resuming institutional communication between the two nations are crucial, according to Han Zheng. He stated that in order to stabilize bilateral relations, both countries should increase their collaboration in a number of areas, such as trade, culture, and the economy.
Given that India and China will celebrate the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in 2025, the meeting is timely. Both leaders recognized this achievement and the necessity of carrying out the agreement that their respective leaders had made at earlier sessions.
Doval and Han talked about how to keep the border, which has been tense since fighting started in 2020, peaceful and quiet. In order to keep border disputes from impeding bilateral ties generally, they reaffirmed the necessity of managing them effectively.
Doval made a promise to continued communication and collaboration between the two countries by inviting China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi to come to India for more talks.
Interestingly, this was the first time the SRs had met since tensions had surfaced in the Western
