Kumar Bahukhandi
Ahead of Crucial Beijing Talks: National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is set to visit Beijing for the 25th round of Special Representatives talks on the India-China boundary question with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as diplomatic attention also turns to President Xi Jinping’s possible visit to India for the BRICS Summit next month-Photo Credit: channel24india.com (File Photo)
NSA’s talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi come weeks before India hosts the BRICS Summit, with the unresolved boundary question and a possible Xi Jinping-Narendra Modi meeting adding significance to the Beijing engagement
Key Highlights
- National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Monday, August 24, for talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
- Doval and Wang will hold the 25th round of Special Representatives talks on the India-China boundary question on Tuesday.
- The meeting comes weeks before India hosts the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping’s participation in the summit has not yet been officially confirmed, but expectations of a possible visit have added diplomatic significance to Doval’s trip.
- India and China have recently discussed LAC stability, boundary delimitation, border management and trans-border cooperation as part of their gradual effort to stabilise relations.
New Delhi: National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s visit to Beijing this week will put the unresolved India-China boundary question back at the centre of high-level diplomacy, while also carrying significance for a possible visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India for next month’s BRICS Summit.
Doval is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Monday, August 24, and hold the 25th round of Special Representatives (SR) talks on the boundary question with Chinese Foreign Minister and Politburo member Wang Yi on Tuesday, August 25.
Doval and Wang are their countries’ designated Special Representatives for negotiations over the India-China boundary.
Although the immediate focus will be the boundary dispute and maintaining stability along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the talks are also expected to provide an opportunity to take stock of the wider bilateral relationship.
Their timing is particularly important.
India is preparing to host the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13, and expectations are growing over the possible participation of Xi Jinping.
Beijing has not yet officially confirmed Xi’s attendance. A visit, if it takes place, would nevertheless create an opportunity for another bilateral engagement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President.
From Border Tensions to a Cautious Reset
India-China relations have been moving through a gradual process of stabilisation after years of severe tensions along the LAC.
A major political opening came when Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024.
The two leaders subsequently met at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Tianjin in August 2025, where they welcomed the positive momentum in bilateral relations and reiterated the view that India and China should approach each other as development partners rather than rivals.
The message that differences should not be allowed to become disputes has since provided an important political backdrop to efforts by officials on both sides to rebuild engagement.
Doval’s latest visit comes shortly after another round of border consultations.
India and China held the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) in New Delhi on August 6.
During those discussions, the two sides reviewed the situation along the LAC and stressed that peace and tranquillity in border areas remained essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.
They agreed to continue using existing diplomatic and military channels—including the WMCC and commander-level mechanisms—to address outstanding issues and prevent misunderstandings or miscalculations along the frontier.
Significantly, the August 6 discussions went beyond immediate troop positions.
Officials exchanged views on boundary delimitation, border management, mechanism-building and trans-border cooperation, building on decisions taken during the previous round of Special Representatives talks.
India also called for an early meeting of the Expert Level Mechanism on trans-border rivers and emphasised the importance of receiving technical information concerning upstream projects.
The 24th round of SR talks, held when Wang visited India in August 2025, had reaffirmed the need to approach the boundary question from the wider political perspective of India-China relations.
Both sides agreed to continue seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for settlement in accordance with the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question.
That framework remains important because decades of negotiations have yet to produce a final settlement of the disputed boundary.
The significance of Doval’s Beijing visit, therefore, extends beyond whether the 25th round produces an immediate breakthrough.
For India and China, managing the LAC peacefully has increasingly become a prerequisite for rebuilding the larger relationship.
And with the BRICS Summit only weeks away, the Doval-Wang engagement could also help establish the diplomatic environment in which Modi and Xi may next meet.
If Xi travels to New Delhi, the visit would carry considerable symbolism after the prolonged deterioration in bilateral relations that followed the border confrontation beginning in 2020.
But the direction of the relationship will ultimately depend less on symbolism than on whether the two Asian powers can translate their renewed political engagement into durable peace along the border and predictable relations beyond it.
Doval’s talks in Beijing will provide the next important indication of how far that process has progressed.
