The Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri on Friday shared India’s views on the situation on the Sino-India border in eastern Ladakh with a senior officer of the Central Military Commission (CMC) as part of New Delhi’s ongoing efforts to reach out to different sections of the Chinese government to find a way to resolve the crisis.
The CMC, which is headed by President Xi Jinping, is overall in-charge of the administration of China’s armed forces.
Misri met Major General Ci Guowei, director of CMC’s office of international military cooperation and “briefed him on India’s stance of vis-à-vis the situation on the borders in eastern Ladakh UT (union territory),” the Indian embassy tweeted Friday afternoon.
No other detail of the meeting was available.
Misri’s Friday meeting with Ci comes two days after he met Liu Jianchao, who is the deputy director of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) central committee’s foreign affairs commission office.
The two meetings held in Beijing this week comes amid several rounds of diplomatic and military negotiations that have been held since June to de-escalate the situation along the line of actual control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
The Indian embassy has not shared details about either of the two meetings – or for that matter why they were held as both the Communist party hierarchy as well as the Chinese government are aware of New Delhi’s stance on the border.
The Chinese side too has been silent about the meetings
At the top of both hierarchies — of the CPC and government — is President Xi Jinping, who is the general secretary of the CPC, and chair of the CMC.
In 2016, Xi took on a new military title as the commander in chief of the military’s Joint Operations Command Centre.
It was not immediately clear if new developments at the LAC led to the two quick meetings in Beijing or whether no progress in the diplomatic and military talks held so far led to them.
The increase in Sino-India diplomatic activity in Beijing could also be seen in the backdrop of reports from India, which say that the disengagement process between the troops of the two countries is not progressing as expected with People’s Liberation of Army (PLA) troops not pulling back at certain friction points in the region.
Chinese troops are said to have pulled back from the Galwan Valley, the site of the June 15 clash, and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of its troops has not moved forward from the Finger areas in Pangong Tso, Gogra and Depsang as demanded by India, reports from New Delhi say.
A Chinese foreign ministry to the Hindustan Times this week said the “At present, the two sides have disengaged in most of the border areas and will continue to coordinate and consult through military and diplomatic channels to further ease the tension and maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.” the statement in Mandarin said.
It has been more than a month since the formal process of disengagement began between the two neighbours, scarred by the deaths of soldiers after decades of no casualties along the disputed boundary.
The graded disengagement began on July 6, a day following a conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councilor Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in the area.
Until now, diplomatic talks have been held under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China border affairs while military talks have been headed by major general-level officers from both sides.
