India-China talks: ‘Structural differences have not disappeared,’ says Chinese strategic affairs scholar

Ahead of talks in Beijing on Tuesday (August 25, 2026) between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Hu Shisheng, a leading Chinese strategic affairs scholar on South Asia, said the focus of both countries would be on “institutionalising stability” even as “structural differences” in the relationship remained.

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India and China will on Tuesday (August 25, 2026) hold the 25th round of talks between the Special Representatives (SRs) on the boundary question. Mr. Doval and Mr. Wang, who is also a member of the Politburo, will also take stock of relations ahead of next month’s expected visit to India by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the BRICS Summit, his first visit in seven years.

“On the border, I would expect the immediate focus to be less on a dramatic settlement and more on institutionalising stability. The priority is to prevent misunderstanding and miscalculation along the LAC, strengthen military and diplomatic communication, and turn last year’s idea of an ‘early harvest’ into an operational process,” Mr. Hu, who is Director of the South Asia Institute at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) in Beijing, told The Hindu.

He was referring to an agreement at last year’s 24th round on establishing an Expert Group under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs to explore “early harvest on boundary delimitation”.

“The two WMCC meetings this year have discussed delimitation, so there has been procedural progress, but there is still no public indication of a concrete sectoral delimitation agreement,” Mr. Hu said. “The realistic next step would be to operationalise the Expert Group, agree on its mandate, timetable and criteria for identifying relatively less contentious sectors, rather than expect an immediate breakthrough on the boundary itself.”

The broader challenge facing the two SRs, he said, was whether both sides “can work out a sustainable modus vivendi that avoids confrontation, keeps differences manageable, and preserves space for cooperation”.

Mr. Hu said the timing of Mr. Doval’s visit, before the September 12 BRICS Summit in New Delhi, added significance to the visit with Mr. Xi expected to visit India.

“Both sides have a strong incentive to keep the border stable and create a favourable political atmosphere for possible leader-level interaction,” he said, adding that he viewed maintaining stability on the border, achieving “concrete and operational progress” on “early harvest” outcomes, and creating favourable conditions for the BRICS Summit as immediate priorities for the border talks.

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At the strategic level, he added, Mr. Doval’s visit would help “clear potential obstacles ahead of the BRICS Summit and lay the groundwork for possible leader-level engagement.” He said ensuring no unexpected border incident before the summit, setting the political tone and identifying deliverables for a possible leaders’ meeting, and coordinating the handover of the BRICS agenda from India to China, which takes over as chair next year, would be three essential issues on the table.

The view in Beijing, as in Delhi, is that the normalisation in relations since the October 2024 meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi is likely to remain gradual and measured.

“As for the broader normalisation, I would describe it as strategic risk management rather than strategic realignment,” Mr. Hu said. “Recent difficulties in India-U.S. relations may give New Delhi greater incentives to diversify its strategic options, while the relative stabilisation of China-U.S. ties reduces some of the external pressure on China-India relations. But the structural differences between China and India have not disappeared. What we are seeing is an attempt to build a more stable form of competitive coexistence – keeping the border peaceful, restoring practical cooperation, and expanding coordination through BRICS and the Global South without pretending that strategic competition no longer exists.”