The China-India rapprochement had been a long time coming. There were some expectations in the air that the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, would necessitate a compromise, as it had in September 2017 when the Doklam military standoff eased off after three months of high tension just ahead of prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the southern Chinese city of Xiamen. Xi Jinping, the CPC chairman and Chinese president, was playing host to the ninth edition.

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Up until then, what had appeared an intractable and volatile crisis pregnant with serious security implications for both nations along the tri-border area with Bhutan, saw a dramatic de-escalation. Forces staged a mutual pullout, and a coordinated disengagement of border personnel took place. It was variously interpreted as a ‘win’ for diplomacy and a case of plucky India ‘staring down’ the Chinese dragon.

Truth was perhaps a little more pedestrian. Modi’s participation in a major non-Western global governance platform, that fashions itself as an alternative to US-led forums such as G7, was at stake. Xi needed to buy India’s presence. It looks bad for a leader with his strategic ambitions – challenging the US-led global system and ushering in a multipolar order – failing to ensure the participation of a foundational member and a neighbour. The successful holding of a global, consequential, non-Western multilateral summit is crucial if China is to increase its global sway and heft.

Doklam, therefore, saw a tactical reprieve from Beijing. Within a year, it quietly redeployed the troops and built hard, permanent infrastructure all around the contested valley, perpetually changing the ‘facts on the ground’.

The Doklam crisis and its ‘resolution’ offers some useful lessons for the current disengagement at Depsang Plains and Demchok. India would do well to exercise ample amounts of caution, and the disengagement process, that is timed with yet another summit, should result in even more eagle-eyed vigilance along the border, if past occurrences are anything to go by.

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Despite the breathless social media commentary, the painstaking trickling down of details resemble the Chinese proverb of ‘crossing the river by feeling the stones’. The foreign secretary’s presser on October 21 left a crucial detail unspecified. We came to know through subsequent media briefings that the restoration of patrolling and grazing rights is restricted only to the patrolling points (PPs) 10, 11, 11A, 12, and 13 in Depsang, and the Charding Ninglung Nullah where PLA troops had been squatting.

Vikram Misri, the foreign secretary, clarified on Tuesday that “the disengagement agreements reached previously are concerned, those agreements were not reopened in these discussions.”

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These previous friction points of disengagement would include PP 14 (Galwan valley), PP 15 (Hot Springs), PP 17A (Gogra), north and south banks of Pangong Tso. In these places, the buffer zones that have largely been created on the territory that India demarcates as its own, will remain in place for now. There will be no patrolling.

Does that undermine the magnitude of the development?

To be clear, the agreement that has been struck after nearly 20 months of discussion is no mean an achievement. The securing of patrolling rights in areas that were considered “legacy issues’ by the Chinese, who were not ready to even discuss the final two friction points of the 2020 military standoff along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh, is the result of hard grind and withstanding of pressure.

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This unsexy work often gets overlooked in favour of the more high-profile schmoozing by the principals, but the importance of the intense diplomatic and military-level talks cannot be overstated.

At a recent dialogue in New Delhi, defence minister Rajnath Singh attributed the progress in ties to the “power of engaging in continuous dialogue because, sooner or later, solutions will emerge”.

“India and China have been involved in talks both at diplomatic and military levels to resolve their differences in certain areas along the LAC. Pursuant to the talks, broad consensus has been achieved to restore ground situation based on the principles of equal and mutual security,” he said, reports The Hindu.

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The words of the minister are significant. What has been achieved is a ‘broad consensus’ for ‘restoration of the ground situation’ that received further ratification from Modi and Xi during their first formal bilateral in five years, but even the first of the three-step process for eventual normalcy at the border – disengagement, de-escalation and de-induction – will be subject to calibration, coordination, implementation and verification.

None of this has been made officially explicit, however. The Indian briefings have been sparse and sparingly informative, whereas the Chinese side has been noticeably evasive and vague.

For instance, during Friday’s briefing by the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, to a question by Reuters on whether India and China have started pulling back their troops from the face-off points, the spokesperson replied, “In accordance with the resolutions that China and India reached recently on issues concerning the border area, the Chinese and Indian frontier troops are engaged in relevant work, which is going smoothly at the moment.” Such vagueness raises question on intent.

In absence of official confirmation, there has been a spate of ‘source’ based reporting. We are being told by Indian Express that the disengagement process, that involves dismantling of temporary and prefabricated structures, will likely finish by October 28-29, while The Tribune reports that patrolling schedule will be “decided and shared in advance” to avoid face-offs.

The Hindu has reported, quoting another unnamed source, that the disengagement plan “also includes Yangtse in Arunachal Pradesh” and that “there is an understanding that Chinese patrols and their movement will not be blocked”.

With China remaining tight-lipped, the Indian side has obviously decided to use the media in unofficial dissemination of information. This difference in approach indicates a lack of trust, a factor that is driven home by the readouts released separately by both sides post Modi-Xi meeting at Kazan.

Beijing’s statement talks about “trend of history and right direction” – focusing on soaring rhetoric and the larger picture, not specifics. The border issue is relegated to almost at the rear end of the statement and dismissed through general obfuscation. This is China sending a message to India that the dispute over the border, where it enjoys operational, occupational, infrastructural and territorial advantage is not crucial for the development of ties. In other words, the issue needs to be siloed off for the relationship to move ahead and it cannot remain at the front and centre of the relationship.

This is Beijing’s stated position, and it is evident that despite forward movement on disengagement, China is in no mood for major accommodation of India’s demands.

One more noticeable difference is that China refrains from referring to ‘multipolar Asia’ and sticks to ‘multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations’, indicating that it remains fixated on projecting itself as the bigger, stronger, wealthier power that will dictate the terms of ties.

The Chinese readout also makes a condescending remark, claiming that “Prime Minister Modi made suggestions on improving and developing the relationship, which President Xi agreed to in principle,” underlining its self-image as the top dog in Asia.

The Indian statement is shorter and terse, indicating an urgency to arrive at a solution. The luxury of deciding the terms of ties is missing. On India’s laser focus on border disengagement the sense is clear that a start (a breakthrough, if you will) has been achieved but nothing more, and subsequent development will depend on the pace and integrity of disengagement.

This circumspection, caution and urgency points to two things. One, the gulf in power between both sides. China’s position appears to be smug, even arrogant, and its gestures are concessional. This rides on the Chinese belief that compromise for the resolution of border issue need not be reciprocal. This is exactly India’s worry too, hence Modi’s stress on Three Mutuals, that “Mutual Trust, Mutual Respect, and Mutual Sensitivity should continue to be the basis of our relations.”

Two, India is aware of the magnitude of the challenge, but is not afraid of confronting China or getting bullied. To a certain extent this attitude (along with geopolitical cross currents, and a faltering Chinese economy) has produced the goods for New Delhi.

There are some convergences in both approaches as well. Both sides reposed faith in the Special Representative mechanism, with Misri at one of his briefings stressing that “the two leaders noted that the Special Representatives on the India-China boundary question have a critical role to play in the resolution of the boundary question and for the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas. Accordingly, they instructed the Special Representatives to meet at an early date and to continue their efforts in this regard.”

Second, the sense that good relations between India and China, home to 2.8 billion people, will have a net “positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity” is not lost on either of the two nations.

That said, the détente between the two nuclear-armed Asian giants, at this stage, is more a promise than reality. It does seem that a very limited disengagement process has taken place to facilitate the meeting between Modi and Xi, with India and China fully aware that if both the foundational nations are at loggerheads with each other then the very idea of BRICS is undermined – dealing a cruel blow to the multipolar cause.

So, more than any grand economic reset (in light of some alarmism in commentary that India may suddenly relax all restrictions on China), or geopolitical necessity, this is a limited, tactical manouvre for a very specific goal. It should not be oversold.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.