India, China arrive on border patrolling pact to resolve conflict, India's top diplomat says

India and China have arrived on a patrolling arrangement along their disputed frontier in the Himalayas and it can lead to disengagement and resolution of a conflict that began in 2020, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday.

News of the pact comes on the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia for the BRICS summit where he could hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines.

Ties between the neighbors have been strained since clashes between their troops on the largely undemarcated frontier left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in 2020.

Misri, the top diplomat in the foreign ministry, said diplomatic and military negotiators of the two countries had held several rounds of talks over the past few weeks.

These talks have resulted in an agreement on "patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had risen in these areas in 2020," he said.

Over the past four years, slow progress on diplomatic and military talks to end the standoff hurt business relations between the world's two most populous nations with New Delhi tightening scrutiny of investments from Chinese firms and halting major projects.

Earlier this month, India's army chief said New Delhi wants the status on the frontier in the western Himalayas to be restored to its pre-April 2020 position when the stand-off began and the situation will remain sensitive until then.

The two sides have resolved the "low-hanging fruits" and now need to address difficult situations, General Upendra Dwivedi said, adding that there was "positive signaling" from the diplomatic side and execution on the ground was dependent on military commanders of the two countries.

There was no immediate response from Beijing to Misri's remarks.

Here is a look at what happened and how the nuclear-armed neighbors have tackled the standoff over the years.

1962

India and China went to war over their border, which has been disputed since they established diplomatic ties in the 1950s.

The relationship between the countries has recovered after a series of border agreements since the 1990s.

2020

At least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, northern India.

The same year, New Delhi heightened scrutiny of investments from China, banned popular Chinese mobile apps and severed direct passenger air routes between the neighbors.

February 2022

The number of Chinese mobile apps banned by India climbed from 59 at the time of the border scuffle to 321.

December 2022

Minor border scuffles broke out in the Tawang sector of India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is also claimed by China as part of southern Tibet.

August 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to intensify efforts to disengage and de-escalate when they met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

June 2024

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan, where they agreed to step up talks to resolve issues along their border

September 2024

Jaishankar said that about 75% of the "disengagement" problems at India's border with China had been sorted out.

India's aviation minister also indicated a thaw in the standoff as he said that the two countries had discussed early resumption of direct passenger flights on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Civil Aviation in Delhi.