National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s visit to Beijing should not be dressed up as some grand response to the latest twists and turns in global geopolitics. Nor should every diplomatic development involving Washington, Pyongyang, Islamabad, Riyadh or Ankara be dragged into a Bharat-China engagement that has a very specific purpose. Doval is travelling to Beijing for the 25th round of the Bharat-China Special Representatives talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The mechanism, established in 2003, exists precisely to address the long-pending boundary dispute between the two countries. That is where the focus should remain. There is, of course, a larger strategic backdrop. Bharat-China relations have been through their most serious crisis in decades since the Galwan clashes of 2020 and the prolonged military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control. The subsequent disengagement from friction points and the gradual restoration of dialogue have created an opportunity—but not yet a solution—to address the fundamental problem. That distinction is important. Disengagement is not the same as resolution. De-escalation is not the same as demarcation. And temporary peace along the LAC cannot substitute for a durable settlement of the boundary question. That is precisely why Doval’s Beijing visit matters. The 24th round of talks in New Delhi last year produced a useful framework. Both sides agreed on the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border, explored an “early harvest” approach in appropriate sectors and agreed to work on better border management and mechanisms for de-escalation. They also reaffirmed the 2005 political parameters and guiding principles for settling the boundary question. The 25th round therefore should be seen as an attempt to move that process forward rather than as diplomatic theatre. There is another reason to attach significance to the timing. Doval’s visit comes ahead of the expected BRICS summit in New Delhi, where Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit India, although Beijing has not yet formally confirmed his participation. If Xi does come to New Delhi, a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi would inevitably generate headlines about a “reset” in Bharat-China relations. But any such reset cannot rest merely on summit photographs, handshakes and carefully worded joint statements. The border remains the real test.
Bharat has every reason to pursue normalisation with China where it serves its national interest. Trade, investment, multilateral cooperation and people-to-people contacts cannot remain permanently hostage to military tensions. At the same time, normalisation cannot mean pretending that the boundary dispute has disappeared. This is where New Delhi’s approach deserves recognition. Bharat is talking to China because China is Bharat’s neighbour and because unresolved borders are a direct national-security concern—not because Washington is talking to Pyongyang, not because alliances elsewhere are shifting, and certainly not because the global geopolitical chessboard happens to be rearranging itself. That is strategic autonomy in practice. Bharat does not need to choose between engaging China and pursuing partnerships with the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia or other countries. Nor does it need to interpret every Chinese move through the lens of American policy. A mature foreign policy is perfectly capable of doing both: strengthening strategic partnerships while directly engaging a difficult neighbour. Doval’s Beijing mission should therefore be judged by a simple yardstick: Does it produce greater clarity, stability and progress on the boundary? If it does, it will have served its purpose. The temptation to portray every diplomatic move as part of some dramatic geopolitical realignment should be resisted. Sometimes diplomacy is exactly what it appears to be—hard, patient and necessarily repetitive negotiations over an old problem. And the Bharat-China border is an old problem that badly needs a new solution. For Bharat, the message to Beijing should be equally simple: good relations are desirable, normal relations are possible—but durable normalisation must ultimately rest on durable peace along the border.
