Opinion
Mint Quick Edit | Can a thaw over the LAC restore India-China ties?
Summary
- Four years plus after the Galwan hostilities, India and China have agreed on disengagement and patrolling. There’s a long way ahead for mutual ties to normalize, but let’s not under-exploit the potential of a better economic relationship.
In what could be a significant breakthrough in the India-China stalemate along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the two countries have reached an agreement over patrolling runs, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday. It’s expected to lead to “disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in 2020," Misri said.
The details of what was agreed upon are yet to be revealed, but if the pre-Galwan status is restored, as the hope is, it could open up space for the normalization of bilateral ties.
To be sure, several other matters of mistrust are still to be resolved, but with signs of progress on a major point of friction that brought Indian and Chinese troops to blows more than four years ago, we may be able to give our commercial ties a better balance.
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The Galwan scuffle led India to raise its defences against China on multiple fronts. Today, it remains unclear to what extent investments from business entities under Beijing’s control pose India a security threat.
As some of these risks are unlikely to be mitigated by a Himalayan peace deal, India can’t relax its vigil in the domain of commerce. Even so, we must not under-exploit the potential of a mutually beneficial economic relationship.
