Reset: Brick-By-Brick

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday took the first formal step towards normalising ties between India and China on the sidelines of the BRICS summit at Kazan where they had their first structured meeting in five years.

The meeting only underscored the enormous distance that has to be traversed before bilateral ties can be termed to have become normal which is an odd word to describe ties between the two Asian giants which have been anything but. For that to happen Prime Minister Modi listed three principles that had to form the bedrock for the way forward - “mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual sensitivity”. All three have been conspicuously lacking in the last four and a half years. He said those should “continue to be the basis of relations between the two countries.”

The meeting in Kazan, where they met with their teams, had given them an opportunity to discuss the issues he had flagged, and was confident that they would discuss them with an open mind and constructively. He made the point that the importance of India-China relations “is not just for our people. Our relations are also important for global peace, stability and progress.”

In a statement that is open to a variety of inferences, the Chinese President for his part urged that "the two sides should strengthen communication and cooperation, properly handle divergences and differences, and realize each other's development dreams." It is a clear indication that management of differences and divergences will continue to be the preoccupation and challenge as the two sides sit down to narrow them.

Xi Jinping added that “It is in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples that China and India correctly grasp the trend of history and the direction of development of bilateral relations."

The last time the two met bilaterally was in Mamallapuram in 2019 and in Wuhan the year before. Both meetings were categorised as being “informal summits”, a way of saying that they had met without the rigidity of their official positions in order to impart momentum and heft to the ties. But that was before India noticed that the Chinese troops were sneaking into regions in the border areas where they shouldn't have been, leading to skirmishes and a sharp downturn in ties. The effort now will be first to take the ties back to the previous levels.

In a media interaction after the meeting, the foreign secretary Vikram Misri said restoration of peace and tranquillity in border areas will create space for returning towards the path of normalisation of ties. Officials will now take the next steps to discuss enhancing strategic communication and stabilising bilateral relations by utilising official dialogue mechanisms, he said. Misri also said Modi and Xi reviewed the state of bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective and they were of the view that stable ties between the two countries will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity. He said both leaders stressed that with maturity and wisdom, and by showing mutual respect, India and China can have a peaceful and stable relationship. Later in a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs also provided an insight into what the Prime Minister told his Chinese counterpart.

In the statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said “for complete disengagement and resolution of issues that arose in 2020 in the India-China border areas, Prime Minister Modi underscored the importance of properly handling differences and disputes and not allowing them to disturb peace and tranquillity.” This was a point that the Chinese President laboured in his opening remarks as well.

This would be taken forward when the Special Representatives on the India-China boundary question (National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi) meet “at an early date to oversee the management of peace and tranquillity in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”

While that has been a quest for many decades now, and an answer may not emerge in the near future, the next baby steps were made clear by the Ministry of External Affairs: “The relevant dialogue mechanisms at the level of Foreign Ministers and other officials will also be utilized to stabilize and rebuild bilateral relations.” It is a long haul from here to normalisation of ties.