India and China on Tuesday discussed making progress on boundary delimitation and maintaining peace along the disputed border, as National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held their 25th round of talks in Beijing.The Indian Embassy in Beijing said the two sides “positively reviewed the ongoing momentum in bilateral relations”.“They discussed ways to further expand bilateral cooperation, maintain stability and ensure peace and tranquility in the border areas, and make progress on boundary delimitation, while sustaining the ongoing work on transboundary cooperation,” the embassy said.NSA Shri Ajit Doval co-chaired the 25th Meeting of SRs on India-China Boundary Question with his counterpart H. E. Wang Yi, Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC and China’s Foreign Minister on 25 August 2026 in Beijing. The two sides positively reviewed the… pic.twitter.com/op50eDrU8i— India in China (@EOIBeijing) August 25, 2026
The two sides reviewed progress in implementing the “important consensus” reached by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan in October 2024 and Tianjin in August 2025, the Ministry of External Affairs said.They also expressed satisfaction at the “steady resumption of people-to-people and cross-border exchanges”, including the ongoing Kailash Manasarovar Yatra and border trade through the three designated border trading passes.China’s Foreign Ministry said the two sides “held in-depth discussions on advancing border delimitation negotiations, strengthening border management and control, improving mechanisms and promoting cross-border cooperation”, The Hindu reportedHowever, neither side specified which parts of the Line of Actual Control were being considered for possible delimitation. Boundary delimitation refers to the process of deciding and formally agreeing on where the international boundary between the two countries should run.The two sides agreed to use the Special Representatives’ mechanism to pursue “a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable package solution to the boundary question”, the Chinese statement said.Wang said China and India should draw lessons from history, place the boundary question appropriately within bilateral relations and continue moving forward without stagnating or backtracking.Doval said the India-China relationship had been “steadily returning to normalcy” over the past year and linked this to both sides maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border.He said the talks were particularly important ahead of the BRICS summit in New Delhi in September, which the Chinese president is expected to attend.Doval and Wang held small-group discussions lasting more than 90 minutes before wider delegation-level talks later on Tuesday.Border tensions between India and China escalated in June 2020 when a violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers took place in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley along the Line of Actual Control. It led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. Beijing said that the clash left four of its soldiers dead.Following the military face-off, both countries deployed thousands of soldiers along with heavy artillery in the region. China and India held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks to resolve their border standoff.In October 2024, the two countries announced that they had reached a patrolling arrangement along the Line of Actual Control, “leading to the disengagement” of the two militaries in eastern Ladakh.The bilateral relations have seen a thaw since 2024.In July 2025, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that relations between India and China were “steadily improving” and called for the continued normalisation of bilateral ties.Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.Also read:India’s knotty China problemInterview: From Trump to West Asia, India’s diplomatic troubles go back to post-Galwan failure
