Have India and China buried their border spat ahead of the BRICS Summit?

In a significant development on the eve of the BRICS summit, India on Monday announced that it has reached an agreement with China on military patrols along their disputed Himalayan border, signalling a potential thaw in relations strained since a deadly clash in 2020.

Indian and Chinese soldiers will be able to resume patrolling the way they had been doing before the border face-off began in May 2020, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday at a media summit held in New Delhi.

“We reached an agreement on patrolling, and we have gone back to the 2020 position. With that, we can say the disengagement with China has been completed. Details will come out in due course," Jaishankar said.

"There are areas which for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we had been doing till 2020," he added.

Earlier in the day, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced the latest pact between the two Asian neighbours in a press conference, stating that it is aimed at disengaging troops stationed at the disputed border.

“Over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomats and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other, and as a result of these discussions, an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the LAC (Line of Actual Control) in the India-China border leading to the disengagements and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in 2020,” Misri told reporters.

The world’s two most populated nations have been engaged in a tussle along the 3,500-kilometre (2,174-mile) long LAC—the de facto border between India and China in the Ladakh area of disputed Jammu and Kashmir— since May 2020.

The military standoff, which began after a violent encounter in the Galwan Valley that left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops dead, has long hampered diplomatic and economic interactions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Misri noted that the recent talks, involving multiple rounds of negotiations between diplomatic and military representatives, are expected to lead to a resolution of issues that have persisted since 2020.

“There were a few areas and a few locations where the standoff had not been resolved. Now as a result of the discussion over the last several weeks, an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the LAC in India-China border areas,” he said.

While the specifics of troop withdrawals remain unclear, the agreement is seen as a step toward de-escalating tensions in the rugged Himalayan terrain, which has seen tens of thousands of troops amassed by both sides.

"The patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control will help pave the way for normalisation of political and business ties," Misri stated.

The breakthrough comes ahead of the BRICS summit that will commence on Tuesday in Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the summit of the emerging economies at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The summit, taking place from October 22 to 24, presents an opportunity for Modi to engage directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The deterioration of relations between India and China has had significant economic repercussions, with India imposing stringent regulations on Chinese investments, effectively sidelining billions of dollars in potential deals from Chinese companies.

Despite these tensions, trade between the two nations has surged, with Indian imports from China increasing by 56 percent since the clashes and China surpassing the US to emerge as the South Asian country's largest trade partner.