Management of the dispute is increasingly being separated from its eventual settlement. That distinction is not a retreat from the boundary question. Rather, it recognizes that the strategic environment along the LAC has changed fundamentally.
The 25th round of the China–India Special Representatives’ (SRs) talks on the boundary question, held in Beijing on 25 August 2026 between India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, is significant less for an immediate breakthrough on the boundary dispute than for what it reveals about the emerging architecture of bilateral relations. Xinhua described the discussions as “comprehensive, in-depth, friendly, and candid” (全面、深入、友好、坦诚).
Wang Yi emphasized the strategic direction set by President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at their meetings in Kazan in 2024 and Tianjin in 2025, calling for the two countries to approach relations from a “strategic and long-term perspective” (战略高度和长远角度), become friendly neighbours and partners that help each other succeed, and realize “the dragon and the elephant tango” (龙象共舞).
He also called on both sides to “draw lessons from history” (总结历史经验), place the boundary question in an “appropriate position” (适当位置), and move forward “without stagnation, regression, or deviation from the right course.”
Doval’s formulation was similarly pragmatic. He called for stronger strategic communication, mutually beneficial cooperation, multilateral coordination, effective border management, exploration of solutions to the boundary question and the further improvement of bilateral relations.
Significantly, the two sides reaffirmed the objective of a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable package settlement” while simultaneously emphasizing border management, institutional mechanisms and crossborder cooperation. This is an important distinction: management of the dispute is increasingly being separated from its eventual settlement.
That distinction is not a retreat from the boundary question. Rather, it recognizes that the strategic environment along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has changed fundamentally.
Both countries have dramatically improved infrastructure, logistics, surveillance and military mobility. The LAC is consequently more accessible to military forces, but also more susceptible to rapid escalation.
The Galwan clash of 2020 demonstrated the consequences. Although subsequent disengagement and diplomatic mechanisms have reduced immediate tensions, a return to the pre-2020 strategic environment is unlikely. What has emerged instead is a new modus vivendi: no major de-escalation but effective border management and diversification of ties.
In this context, three developments stand out from the 26 August statement: the creation of Expert and Working Groups to advance boundary delimitation and border management, with an “early and substantial harvest” as an objective; strengthened military communication mechanisms, including two new meeting points in the Central and Eastern Sectors and two additional border hotlines; and expanded trans-border cooperation, including the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra, reopening of three border trading points, and renewed engagement on trans-border rivers. Additionally, the idea of “package settlement” has returned since the 24th meeting of the SRs.
The idea of a package settlement, often described as an “east-west swap”, therefore remains relevant, although it should not be mistaken for an agreed formula. Its underlying logic is that a final settlement would have to accommodate the realities of present jurisdiction and control rather than simply reproduce maximalist historical claims, albeit both tend to take maximalist approaches—China’s toponymic expansion in Arunachal between 2017 and 2025, and India’s claim of entire Aksai Chin and territories China holds in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The political difficulty is obvious: territorial sovereignty has acquired enormous symbolic value in both countries, making compromise increasingly difficult to present domestically as anything other than a concession.
It is precisely here that the recent Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) report (July 2026), “India’s Propaganda Warfare Against China: Historical Roots and Contemporary Evolution”, led by Liu Zongyi, becomes important—not necessarily because all of its interpretations should be accepted, but because it reveals the depth of Chinese strategic distrust of India. Liu and his team portray India’s China policy as a broad “propaganda warfare” involving government institutions, political parties, think-tanks, media and sections of academia. They argue that narratives concerning the border, China’s economic rise, water resources, Tibet and religiouscultural issues have become interconnected components of a larger strategic discourse.
On the boundary question, the report identifies recurring Indian narratives: selective use of colonial historical sources; the transformation of disputed areas into supposedly “undisputed” territory; the elevation of questionable historical records into evidence of sovereignty; and the attribution of border clashes to “Chinese betrayal.” The Galwan episode is incorporated into this broader interpretation, with the report arguing that Indian narratives portray China as the initiator of confrontation and India as the victim, followed by a narrative of Indian “victory.”
Liu and his team extend this interpretation beyond the border. They identify a sequence of narratives portraying China’s development as a “gift from the U.S.,” followed by predictions of the “collapse” of the Chinese economy and the prospect of “India replacing China.” They similarly interpret the “debt trap” and “String of Pearls” narratives as attempts to securitize China’s economic presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. At the deepest level, the report attributes these patterns to colonial legacies, nationalist politics and an internalized geopolitical imagination inherited from British India.
As an account of Chinese perceptions, the report is highly revealing. It shows that Chinese distrust of India extends well beyond the LAC to India’s economic policies, strategic partnerships, international communication and domestic political discourse. It also makes an important analytical point: narratives can become institutionalized and influence policy even when they are contested empirically. But a critical reading must also recognize the limitations of Liu’s narrative. The report frequently presents contested interpretations as settled facts and uses strongly normative language such as “propaganda warfare,” “false narratives,” “colonial mentality,” and “jealousy and hatred.” It, therefore, risks reproducing the same narrative closure that it attributes to India.
The Liu Zongyi report demonstrates how deeply distrust has become embedded in Chinese perceptions of India. Its value lies precisely in exposing the cognitive environment within which Chinese policy is formulated; its weakness lies in sometimes reproducing the binary logic it seeks to criticize. The same caution applies to Indian narratives about China. The strategic task for both countries is not merely to defeat the other’s narrative, but to prevent competing narratives from closing the political space necessary for negotiation.
Against this background, the 25th SRs meeting assumes an additional significance because it comes immediately before the anticipated visit of President Xi Jinping to New Delhi for the 2026 BRICS Summit. The summit, currently scheduled for 12-13 September, gives the two countries a wider diplomatic theatre in which to translate the current thaw into broader strategic cooperation.
The 25th round of the SRs talks offers a modest but consequential opening. If border management can stabilize the LAC, bilateral economic relations can be diversified, and BRICS can provide a broader platform for practical cooperation, India and China may be able to move from a relationship of managed distrust towards one of strategic accommodation. The opportunity presented by the 2026-27 BRICS presidencies makes that task more urgent. The success of the process will ultimately depend not on diplomatic rhetoric alone, but on whether Beijing and New Delhi can convert strategic communication into institutionalized cooperation and institutionalized cooperation into strategic trust.
*B.R. Deepak is Professor, Centre for Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
