(TibetanReview.net, Aug29’26) – Giving up its insistence on a comprehensive resolution of the bilateral territorial dispute covering all the three Tibet-border sectors, India has accepted China’s proposal to discuss an early harvest deal to prioritise delimitation of the less contentious stretches of the boundary and has given its nod for the constitution of a joint expert group to advance negotiations on such an arrangement, reported deccanherald.com Aug 27.
The report cited India as confirming Aug 26 that it had agreed with China in constituting an expert group to discuss an “early and substantial harvest of boundary delimitation”. The two governments also constituted a working group on border management.
The constitution of the groups was reported to have been finalised when the special representatives of the two governments – India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi – held the 25th round of boundary negotiations in Beijing on Aug 25. The two groups would work under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India–China Border Affairs (WMCC) constituted in 2012.
Also on Aug 26, the two sides separately made public a set of eight points of outcomes and consensus reached at the talks between the two special representatives.
The two governments had announced that Expert Group on Boundary Delimitation and Working Group on Border Management under the WMCC would respectively advance discussions on an Early and Substantial Harvest of boundary delimitation and Border Management.
The first task for both the groups would be to agree on their respective Terms of Reference, they have added in press releases issued in New Delhi and Beijing.
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The report noted that India had long been opposed to resolving the dispute in a piecemeal manner and had in the past rejected such proposals from Beijing, citing the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, which had stipulated that the settlement “must be final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary”.
But the 24th round of boundary negotiations in Aug 2025 saw New Delhi agreeing with Beijing on setting up an Expert Group, under the WMCC, to explore early harvest in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas.
And the 25th round of talks between the special representatives in Beijing on Aug 25 saw both sides building on the outcome of the last round of negotiations and constituting the expert group and the working group for early harvest boundary delimitation and border management.
Specifically, Beijing has long been nudging New Delhi for an “early harvest” agreement for resolving the dispute in the Sikkim Sector, as well as in the middle sector – which stretches in Uttarakhand and Himachal – of the India-Tibet boundary, first, before trying to settle the more contentious stretches in the eastern and western sectors in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh, the report noted.
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India’s contention is that China is in illegal occupation of about 38,000 sq km of India’s territory in Aksai Chin, which borders eastern Ladakh. Beside, Pakistan ceded to China about 5,180 sq. km of India’s territory in Shaksgam Valley in 1963.
On its part, China claims about 90,000 sq km of areas in Arunachal Pradesh and recently began calling it “Zangnan” (South Tibet) in a strengthening of its assertion.
The report noted that India and China had agreed that the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for resolving the territorial dispute would be followed by a framework for boundary settlement. They had agreed that the “framework would provide the basis for the delineation and demarcation of the India-China boundary to be subsequently undertaken by civil and military officials and surveyors of the two sides”.
However, the two sides could not work out a framework in the past two decades.
But now, Doval and Wang on Aug 25 underlined their commitment to advancing negotiations on a framework for the settlement of the boundary question in accordance with the 2005 agreement and the consensus reached in subsequent talks between the special representatives in pursuit of a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution, the report cited both New Delhi and Beijing as saying Aug 26.