Ajit Doval goes to Beijing while India prepares for Xi’s visit

India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is expected to visit Beijing on Monday and Tuesday for the 25th round of talks between the special representatives (SRs) on the boundary question, and ahead of a possible visit to India next month by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Doval’s visit and talks with Chinese Politburo member and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will also take stock of the broader bilateral relationship, The Hindu reports.

That the visit is taking place a few weeks before India’s hosting of the BRICS Summit on 12 September is an indication that both sides are preparing for a first visit by Xi in seven years, which would also likely include bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A meeting between the two leaders in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia paved the way for the start of what both sides see as a gradual and steady normalisation in relations. Modi and Xi last met at the SCO Summit in Tianjin, China, in August last year, when they both “welcomed the positive momentum and steady progress in bilateral relations” and “reaffirmed that the two countries were development partners and not rivals, and that their differences should not turn into disputes.”

Doval’s visit follows a meeting between officials from both sides on 6 August, under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs, during which the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was reviewed. Both sides also “held detailed exchanges on issues related to boundary delimitation, border management, mechanism building and trans border cooperation,” according to a statement.

At the previous round of SR talks when Wang visited India in August 2025, both sides agreed on “the need to take a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship while seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for settlement of the boundary question in accordance with the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question signed in 2005.

Read More

Bihar to raise concerns over India-Bangladesh water-sharing during treaty renewal: Minister

The 2005 agreement marked the conclusion of the first of a three-stage process to settle the long-running boundary dispute. Since then, both sides have been negotiating a framework to settle the dispute. The third stage will involve delimiting and demarcating the boundary on maps and on the ground.

Recent references to the exchange of views on “border delimitation” suggest both sides are exploring an “early harvest” agreement in some areas, pending the agreement of a complete framework.

At last year’s SR talks, both agreed on setting up an Expert Group under the WMCC “to explore Early Harvest in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas”, as well as the “creation of General Level Mechanisms in Eastern, and Middle Sectors, in addition to the existing General Level Mechanism in Western Sector.”

Given recent problems in the Western Sector, where tensions in Eastern Ladakh starting in April 2020 led to a more than four-year freeze in relations, and in the Eastern Sector, over which both sides this month traded sharp comments over differences in Arunachal Pradesh amid reports of border tensions, parts of the Middle Sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and the Sikkim sector offer possibilities of an early harvest agreement.

Earlier this month, both sides restarted border trade through the Nathu La Pass in Sikkim and Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand.