INDIA'S CHINESE PUZZLE

India-China relations have broken through the deep chill, but their future course depends on ongoing geopolitical shifts

- BY SHYAM SARAN

India-China relations are in a slow crawl towards a new equilibrium as they respond to a new situation on their contested border and a vastly transformed geopolitical terrain. The Peace and Tranquility agreement of 1993, and subsequent confidence-building measures which were built on it, helped keep the border stable and peaceful for the past three decades. This came to an end with the aggressive Chinese military manoeuvres in eastern Ladakh in 2022. Thanks to the major improvements in border infrastructure by India since 2004, Indian armed forces were able to quickly deploy a comparable force to prevent Chinese ingress into Indian territory. While disengagement of forces has taken place in some segments of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and patrolling has resumed in other segments, the redeployment of forces back to their base locations inland has not taken place. Until this is achieved, one cannot say that the situation has returned to status quo ante.