On 18 August 2025, New Delhi will host the 24th round of talks between the Special Representatives (SR) of India and China — a mechanism for border affairs that was set up during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s China visit of April 2003.

The SR mechanism entails direct conversation between the confidants of the national leaders of India and China. This had superseded their Joint Working Group (JWG) on border talks that were set up during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 groundbreaking visit to China when his unusual three minute long handshake with Deng Xiaoping had heralded a new chapter in India-China relations.

This JWG mechanism was a first of its kind and had helped in transforming post-1962 India-China relations. Over 15 rounds of talks and two confidence-building agreements of 1991 and 1993 had set the template of ‘peace and tranquillity’ for the world’s largest disputed border. The JWG had its last meeting in March 2005.

Later, in 2012, another Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China border affairs was also set up, which has also held 34 meetings so far.

The SR mechanism

As regards this SR mechanism, the current two Special Representatives – India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and China’s long-time Foreign Minister Wang Yi – have been meeting for over a decade now.

Their last round of talks was in Beijing last December, which had contributed to a positive momentum of military disengagement and de-escalation following the October meeting of President Xi and Prime Minister Modi at the BRICS summit at Kazan, Russia.

The two had met again this June at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) national security advisors meeting in Beijing. But, compared to their December talks, which were held against the backdrop of four years of post-Galwan bilateral India-China border tensions, the coming round is likely to be defined by the larger geopolitics of US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitzkrieg on one and all.

This also comes immediately after the high-profile summit between President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska. In fact, President Putin has held phone calls with both President Xi and Prime Minister Modi, underscoring their stakes in its outcomes.

For an optimistic take on the outcomes of the SR talks therefore, the coming round could mark an inflexion point in their once-frozen but slowly thriving relationship. An anticipated change in their bilateral relations could then help push both countries to revive the Russia-India-China Strategic Triangle as Moscow has been nudging to building a trilateral response to President Trump’s sanctions and tariffs.

Given that multi-aligned India remains cautious in taking sides, this SR meeting could also illuminate the likely expectations from a Putin-Modi-Xi meeting during the early September SCO summit in Tianjin, paving the way for further fine-tuning of their tariff-tackling strategies during President Putin’s India visit in the coming months.

From 'Galwan' standoff to 'gradual' thaw

To begin with, the past decade of China’s ever-increasing incursions and the resultant faceoffs in the India-China border areas, which had culminated in deadly Galwan clashes of June 2020, continue to loom large in their mutually sceptical perceptions and policies. This explains why their much-touted processes of military disengagement, de-escalation and normalisation of the border have remained slow and steady.

However, several pragmatic steps have also been taken since late 2024 that validate this being their measured path toward stability:

-        In October 2024, on the eve of the Kazan meeting between Modi and Xi, both sides had agreed on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), followed by their phased troop disengagement and de-escalation from the four years of heavy forward deployments.

-        In mid-2025, further diplomatic normalisation has gained traction as both sides agreed to reinstate their direct flights, resumed the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra pilgrimage, and India has since relaxed visa restrictions for Chinese nationals.

-        Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, meeting his Chinese counterpart at the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting at Tianjin in June, had indicated a shift in New Delhi’s tone by talking in terms of seeking a “permanent solution”— a structured roadmap for disengagement, delimitation, and trust-building.

-        Complementing this, the 34th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs in New Delhi, in late July, had expressed “satisfaction” with the general prevalence of peace and tranquillity in the border areas and reaffirmed the need to maintain regular exchanges at diplomatic and military levels. 

What to expect next?

In this backdrop, the latest SR talks obtain an outsized significance in several dimensions of recasting the complex grid of major powers' equations. The talks happen not just in the backdrop of a gradual thawing of India-China relations since October last year, but also are marked by six months of Trump’s tariff tirades. Furthermore, China will be hosting both PM Modi and President Putin on 1-2 September and President Trump on 3rd September. 

India and China have become Trump’s targets for buying large quantities of Russian oil, thereby financing, what he calls, Putin’s war efforts and enabling his defiance of Trump’s deadlines for ending the conflict in Ukraine. All this calls for an early resetting of India-China equations to enable them to redress these larger geopolitical challenges.

This means that the most immediate task for the SRs will be to take the India-China thawing to its next logical step of strategic partnership. Some of the priorities for the SRs, therefore, could include the following:

i) Operational de-escalation and troop management:

No doubt, both sides have achieved troop disengagement; yet, the process of de-escalation may become prolonged and piecemeal. Clearly, large-scale troop pullbacks will remain a utopian pipe dream — with frontline deployments and infrastructure consolidation underway on both sides.

Yet, the SRs may pave the way for a renewed dialogue on issues like forward troop posture management, buffer mechanisms near friction points, and clarification of existing disengagement protocols and processes.

ii) Institutionalising confidence-building measures 2.0:

India’s Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar has been ad nauseam advocating the need for a next chapter of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), necessitated by the transformed stature of both nations, which makes their equations deeply intertwined with regional and global dynamics. Hence, beyond their ongoing process of troop disengagement and de-escalation, the SR talks may reiterate commitments to confidence-building.

These could include flag meetings from flag-post protocols, to hotline communications, and renewed interest in long-stalled confidence-building commitments such as map exchanges or jointly patrolled buffer zones, to reviving Informal Summits.

iii) Linkages to larger geopolitical dynamics:

Given the nature of the SR mechanism and the track record of these two current interlocutors, their talks are likely to touch broader geopolitical developments reflecting how China and India view each other’s external alignments, especially their re-calibrations with the US and Russia, and their evolving strategic equations within multilateral configurations like SCO and BRICS.

India has lately projected itself as the voice of sanity and restraint both in BRICS and SCO’s de-dollarisation campaign as also in the Quad’s anti-China inclinations.

iv) Preparing the path for bilateral high-level diplomacy

Crucially, this SR engagement is taking place on the eve of Prime Minister Modi’s first China visit since 2019. Looking at its media coverage of this visit, China seems strongly inclined to generate momentum and goodwill to facilitate substantive engagement.

There is a possibility of a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Tianjin, set for 31 August–1 September 2025. This could help revive their Informal Summits of 2018 and 2019, which had proved very useful in resolving irritants of all kinds.

Reviving Modi-Xi Informal Summits

This revitalisation of their SR talks traces back to the October 2024 Modi–Xi meeting in Kazan, where both leaders had agreed to pursue a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” resolution to the boundary dispute. This understanding has since anchored their follow-up sequence of diplomatic interactions, including the SR talks. 

This saw India’s Foreign Minister Jaishankar visiting Beijing to attend last month’s SCO foreign ministers' meet. The visit facilitated a bilateral meeting with his counterpart, Wang Yi and a brief meeting with President Xi Jinping. Suffice it is to mention that Jaishankar was India’s Ambassador in China during 2009-2013. Like PM Modi, Jaishankar had also last visited China in 2019.

Whether the Modi-Xi bilateral at the Tianjin SCO summit will go as far as to revive their most innovative mechanism of annual Informal Summits, however, remains to be seen. This is where, on the eve of the Trump-Putin Alaska summit, the direct phone conversations of President Putin with President Xi and Prime Minister Modi gain immense significance.

These conversations underline their newfound cordiality, if not bonhomie, which may also hold promise for India-China ties. For instance, while India-China strategic rivalry will remain — defined by their asymmetric trust, infrastructure gap and an underlying power competition that will not soon dissipate — this interlude of post-Kazan diplomacy could trigger several possibilities that may include the following:

-        Reassurance amid global uncertainty: As tensions with the US intensify over tariffs and geopolitical alignments, India has sought to maintain equanimity with both the US and China. Advancing dialogue keeps the bilateral rupture at bay. But, with Trump refusing trade talks and imposing 50 percent tariffs against India, President Xi may have an advantage in persuading India to revive the Russia-India-China axis.

-        Regional signalling within SCO: At this SCO debut since 2019, Modi’s presence, buttressed by these prior exchanges, signals India’s intent to re-engage constructively in Eurasia, advocating taking lead in addressing Trumpian disruptions for building an inclusive, balanced regional order.

India, for instance, had recently refused to endorse a Quad communique, blaming Iran for tensions in the Middle East. All this could signal India’s drift towards the Sino-Russian axis, though India continues to be engaged with Brussels and Washington, DC.

Tianjin Summit: The next step?

If the SR talks on August 18 yields credible outcomes — or even incremental ones — Modi’s visit to Tianjin will be elevated beyond ritual diplomacy. For instance, Modi’s bilateral engagement with Xi could become a harbinger of another new chapter in their bilateral relations with implications beyond Beijing and New Delhi.  

In that backdrop, Modi’s interaction with other SCO leaders — especially with leaders from Russia and Iran — can project India as a constructive force and a firm stakeholder in regional stability and prosperity. Even modest promises of continued ‘peace and tranquility’ on their borders and sustained dialogue can build the momentum needed for their high-profile visit that balances aspiration with realism.

This is what promises to make these August 18 SR talks more than just a technical exercise. It could become a hinge moment where incremental border management, geopolitical calibration, and the prospect of high-level diplomacy may converge and fructify overtime.

After five years of their disruptive Galwan clashes, India-China talks now represent a sustained, disciplined and layered attempt to reset their interactions.

If handled with strategic sobriety, they could restore limited but durable stability, enhance mutual trust, and pave the way for not just Prime Minister Modi’s successful appearance in Tianjin — projecting cautious optimism in an oft-fraught bilateral relationship — but also create grounds for reviving their Informal Summits and a possible strategic partnership.

Only time and talks, like those of the SRs, will tell whether this will become a durable diplomacy or just another ephemeral lull of some kind.

As Trump-terrified world looks for post-American alternatives, India and China are expected to recognise this inordinate opportunity (read responsibility) to take charge befitting the world’s second and fourth largest economies.

As of now, the contours of India-China interactions seem grounded in processes, not pretences.