Pact between India and China to reduce tensions on the Himalayan border: “We both want peace”

BEIJING – For the first time, after weeks of border fights and mutual accusations, China and India can find common words of relaxation. And at the end of a long meeting between the two foreign ministers, they delivered to a joint statement the desire to “reduce” the level of hostility and to collaborate for “peace and tranquility.” The agreement should pave the way for a parallel disengagement of troops deployed along the disputed Himalayan border, but the decline in the countryside, between peaks and valleys where the two countries perform a low intensity challenge to erode, will not be easy. the positions of the ‘adversary.

The face-off between Chinese Minister Wang Yi and his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar took place in Moscow on Thursday night, on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the multilateral security group promoted by China and Russia. . , which India also joined in 2017. The venue didn’t look good. After the brawl with sticks and sticks in mid-June, in which 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers were killed, a new incident occurred on Monday: China accused Indian troops of firing warning shots into the air. violating an agreement not to use firearms near the border that he had maintained for decades; India responded by accusing China of shooting it. In the following hours, the Chinese prime-time newscast showed the exercises of the National Army paratroopers on the Tibetan plateau, while the regime newspapers invited Delhi to choose between peace and war.

Military maneuvers on the border between India and China near Gangangeer in Ladakh

However, despite the nationalist rhetoric and politics that distinguish the two Asian giants and their leaders, Modi and Xi, in recent weeks analysts have pointed out that it is not in the interest of China or India that the tensions degenerate into conflict. . open. And this assumption is the first of the five points of the agreement reached yesterday in Moscow after two and a half hours of dialogue, according to which the parties will work to promote operational dialogue on the ground and to quickly disengage the troops. Even the report of the Chinese side of the meeting, while reiterating the request to India to stop the provocations, is exceptionally mild, recalling that the two countries are not a mutual threat but “cooperation partners”.

The tensions of recent months have inflamed internal public opinion and sparked not only symbolic retaliation, such as India’s decision to ban hundreds of Chinese apps from the country’s phones. This détente, however, confirms that both leaders have other priorities: India to contain the pandemic that is still out of control and avoid the collapse of the economy, China to boost the recovery and dedicate itself to confronting the United States. It remains to be seen how the political agreement will play out on the front line, where the level of animosity between the fronts, which often come into contact along the so-called “current line of control”, is enormous. Neither China nor India are willing to give up their territorial claims along the Himalayas and it is very likely that they will continue, perhaps more quietly and avoiding confrontations, strengthening their positions.