Senior army officers from India and China sat down for a corps commander-level meeting in Arunachal Pradesh's Kibithoo region on Sunday, reviewing the situation along the Line of Actual Control and discussing steps to keep the frontier calm, according to people familiar with the matter. Such meetings between senior commanders on the ground are among the most direct channels the two militaries use to manage friction along the disputed frontier.
Where And Who Attended
The meeting was held at the Wacha-Damai border meeting point in the Kibithoo sector. Lt General Girish Kalia, who commands the Army's Dimapur-based 3 Corps, led the Indian side at the talks. The Indian Army has not put out any official statement on what was discussed.
Coming Right After Beijing's Special Representatives Talks
The border meeting followed just days after National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, acting as the two countries' special representatives, met in Beijing to discuss the boundary dispute and cooperation across the border. Sunday's engagement marked the first corps commander-level meeting in this sector since those Beijing talks concluded. During the Beijing round, India and China had reached agreement on eight points, one of which was identifying two more locations where senior military commanders from both sides could meet, with the goal of strengthening how the border is managed.
Reports Of Friction In Taksin
Sunday's talks also came against the backdrop of reported tension between Indian Army troops and China's People's Liberation Army in Taksin, a remote pocket of Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Subansiri district. What exactly is happening on the ground in that area has not been clearly established. People familiar with the matter had earlier indicated that soldiers from the two sides had faced off with each other on several occasions in Taksin, and that the situation had reportedly turned more serious toward the end of July.
Why Both Sides Keep Talking
At the August 25 special representatives' meeting, India had made clear that keeping peace and tranquillity along the India-China border was essential if the two countries wanted their overall relationship to move forward. The Ministry of External Affairs' readout of that meeting also stressed that calm in the border areas was necessary for ties between the two nations to keep developing. This latest round of military contact comes as New Delhi and Beijing keep working to steady relations that were rattled by the 2020 military standoff in eastern Ladakh. The August meeting between Doval and Wang was actually the third round of special representatives' talks since October 2024, when both countries had reached an understanding to resolve that Ladakh standoff. That long confrontation had pushed India-China relations down to their worst point since the two nations fought a war in 1962.
