Diplomatic optics must not dictate India’s boundary negotiations with China
When Luo Zhaohui, then China’s Ambassador to India, revived the idea of an “early harvest” in India-China boundary negotiations in 2017, India responded with skepticism. The proposal — to settle the Sikkim boundary in isolation from the three other sectors — was an asymmetric concession dressed up in the language of progress. India has resisted it. There is now a gnawing doubt as to whether it can hold that position. The trigger for this piece is a former border negotiator’s concern that India might “stumble” into a damaging course of action under Chinese pressure and driven by the temptation to project contrived progress. Diplomacy that trades long-term strategic interests for short-term optics is self-defeating.
New Delhi must be cautious
The readout issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on the 24th round of the Special Representatives’ Dialogue on the Boundary Question between India and China (on August 19, 2025) between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recorded India’s agreement to “set up an Expert Group … to explore an early harvest in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas”. China’s own readout was more pointed: it used the term “demarcation” rather than “delimitation” and spoke of “launching boundary demarcation negotiations in sectors where conditions are ripe.”
The MEA press release on the 35th Meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs, held in Beijing on May 27, 2026, mentions that the two sides “discussed issues pertaining to delimitation, border management, mechanism building and cross-border cooperation” and “agreed to work together to make substantive preparation” for the next SRs’ meeting. The reference to ‘delimitation’ is significant as it suggests follow-up discussions on the understanding “to explore Early Harvest in boundary delimitation”.
The cornerstone of Special Representative negotiations is the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, signed on April 11, 2005. Article III explicitly envisages “a package settlement” covering all sectors of the India-China boundary. It establishes a three-step process: first political parameters, then a framework for a final settlement, then delineation and demarcation. Demarcation — placing physical markers on the ground — comes last, not first. China’s proposal to begin demarcation in a single “ripe” sector inverts this sequence and, in effect, asks India to abandon the package architecture in exchange for the appearance of progress. India should decline.
Why does the package settlement matter so much? Because the four sectors of the India-China boundary are strategically interlinked, requiring give and take across sectors. It also guards against China extracting concessions sector by sector. An early harvest in Sikkim, where India holds comparative geographical advantage, would let Beijing bank a settlement on its preferred terms while leaving the other three sectors unresolved.
The Sikkim stakes
The Sikkim Sector boundary is not, as sometimes claimed, a simple matter. Clashes at Nathu La and Cho La in 1967, with heavy casualties, showed how sharp these differences are. Article I of the 1890 Great Britain-China Convention identifies “Mount Gipmochi on the Bhutan frontier” as the starting point of the Sikkim-Tibet boundary, but it is preceded by an assertion that the boundary “shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu”. China reads the article as placing the trijunction at Gipmochi. India and Bhutan hold that the trijunction lies at Batang La, some 6.5 kilometers to the north, on the watershed — which is the operative geographical principle in Article I.
Zompelri (or Jampheri) Ridge adjoining Geymochen commands a direct view of the Siliguri Corridor, the narrow strip connecting mainland India to its northeastern States. Any settlement implicitly endorsing the Gipmochi trijunction would hand China a legal instrument to press its claim to the very edge of the Himalayas, exposing the Corridor. The Chinese objective is to deepen and widen its Chumbi Valley and increase pressure on India’s most acute territorial vulnerability.
The Doklam dimension reinforces this concern. Since 2017, China has systematically consolidated its position in western Bhutan — building roads and military facilities, constructing villages including Pangda on the Amo Chu river, and developing routes to the Jampheri Ridge that bypass the 2017 Doklam standoff site. A Sikkim settlement would immediately be leveraged by Beijing to step up pressure on a vulnerable Bhutan to settle its boundary with China. India and China have agreed that trijunction points must be finalized in trilateral consultation with all countries concerned. Even if the trijunction point is left out, China could force Bhutan to settle the rest of the disputed boundary on its own terms and present India with a fait accompli in Doklam.
Since the Eastern Ladakh transgressions of 2020, China has pursued multiple pressure tracks simultaneously: military consolidation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), steady resurrection of the “Zangnan” (South Tibet) narrative to describe Arunachal Pradesh, renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh, and expansion of “border defense villages” close to India-China LAC.
The resumption of Special Representative talks is welcome, but dialogue must be conducted with strategic clarity, not under diplomatic pressure or for the optics of progress. Three principles should guide India’s approach.
First, hold the 2005 Agreement’s framework firm. The Expert Group agreed upon in August 2025 must not become a vehicle for an early harvest in Sikkim. Agreeing to “explore” is not a commitment to accept. India should reject a standalone Sikkim delimitation or demarcation exercise.
Second, make peace and tranquility on the LAC the non-negotiable condition of progress. China has periodically attempted to delink border management from the broader relationship; India has resisted this, and should continue to do so. Unilateral alterations to the LAC cannot be normalized. Indeed, the so-called “buffer zones” in Eastern Ladakh must not be allowed to persist.
Third, press for genuine political engagement on a comprehensive settlement. Decades of talks have shown that the respective narratives cannot be reconciled through legal arguments. The 2005 Agreement recognized this: it called for a political settlement that would “safeguard the vital interests of both countries” and set out principles such as the two sides “safeguard(ing) due interests of their settled populations in the border areas”. Any breakthrough requires political will on both sides. India should press for meaningful boundary negotiations, not paper over the lack of progress with working groups. The test of China’s seriousness will be whether it is prepared to engage on the framework for a comprehensive settlement — and whether it is prepared to hold the LAC stable while that engagement proceeds. Absent those conditions, the Special Representative process risks becoming what it has sometimes been before: a forum for managing appearances while China improves its position on the ground.
Stay the course
In boundary talks, China has a track-record of cherry-picking and resiling from formal commitments, as it did in the case of an explicit agreement to arrive at a common understanding of the LAC after exchanging maps showing the entire alignment. India must prevent the Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question from meeting a similar fate. If peace and tranquility on the LAC is the foundation for rebuilding India-China relations, the 2005 Agreement is the road map for resolving the boundary question. India has nothing to gain from an early harvest limited to Sikkim and must maintain its negotiating space through a comprehensive negotiation. India cannot afford a shortcut to a destination that suits China.
(Ashok K. Kantha is a former Ambassador to China, Subhas Chandra Bose Chair Professor of International Relations, Chanakya University, and Distinguished Fellow with the Vivekananda International Foundation)
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