Ajit Doval Travels to Beijing for 25th Round of Border Talks

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval arrives in Beijing on August 24 for the 25th round of Special Representatives talks on the India-China boundary question. He will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who serves as China's Special Representative, on Tuesday.

The mechanism was established in 2003 to address the 3,488-kilometre disputed border. The last round took place in New Delhi in August 2025. Talks had been frozen for nearly five years after the 2020 Galwan Valley clash and only resumed in December 2024.

Officials on both sides expect the agenda to cover the current situation along the Line of Actual Control, including eastern Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, and mechanisms to prevent fresh escalation. India is likely to raise concerns about cross-border terrorism, as it did in the previous round.

The meeting carries added weight because it precedes the expected visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to India for the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12-13. That trip would be Xi's first to India in several years and could create space for a sideline meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

An expert group set up earlier continues to explore the possibility of an early harvest in boundary delimitation. Both sides have pointed to the 2005 Political Parameters and Guiding Principles as a reference point.

Recent reports of Chinese troop activity in Arunachal Pradesh have circulated in Indian media, though the Defence Ministry has not issued a formal statement on the scale of any such movements. The talks offer a structured channel to address those reports and to take stock of the October 2024 disengagement agreement.

Success in resolving the boundary itself remains distant. The practical value of the Special Representatives process lies in keeping communication open and limiting the risk of local incidents expanding into larger confrontations.