India and China hold first eastern-sector corps talks at Wacha-Damai

Indian and Chinese corps commanders met on 6 September at the Wacha-Damai border personnel point in Arunachal Pradesh's Kibithoo area, the first meeting at that rank in the eastern sector. Lieutenant General Girish Kalia, who commands the Dimapur-based 3 Corps at Rangapahar, led a 12-member Indian group that included an inspector general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. The People's Liberation Army side was not named in public. There was no joint statement.

Until this session, corps-level talks after the 2020 Galwan clash had been a Ladakh instrument, held mainly at Chushul-Moldo. The eastern sector, which covers Sikkim and Arunachal along more than 1,100 kilometres of the Line of Actual Control, used lower-level border personnel meetings. Moving the higher channel east is the change. People familiar with the sitting said the brief was to keep peace and quiet on that stretch of the line.

The timing is not accidental. National security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi held special representative talks in Beijing on 25 August on the boundary and on cross-border work. A joint readout from that round said ground problems should be handled through existing diplomatic and military channels. President Xi Jinping is expected in New Delhi for a BRICS summit from 11 to 13 September. A first corps meeting in Arunachal eight days after Beijing and five days before that summit is a military courtesy with a political calendar attached.

It is also a response to a local file. In July, residents around Taksing in Upper Subansiri reported PLA soldiers or markers in ground India treats as undemarcated. 3 Corps owns that belt. 4 Corps, based at Tezpur, owns the rest of the Arunachal line. Putting Kalia across the table is how the army talks about Taksing without waiting for another special representative round.

Earlier senior military talks this year produced an eight-point note that included two new border meeting points and more hotlines. One of those points was earmarked for the eastern sector under 3 Corps, another for the central sector. Sunday's sitting is the first test of whether that paper exists on the ground at Wacha-Damai.

India and China still do not agree where the line runs. Face-offs follow from that fact. The eastern channel does not settle the map. It gives both armies a named officer and a named hut in which to say so before a patrol collision becomes a political event in a week when Xi is due in Delhi.

The measure of the meeting is whether the next Taksing report is handled by the new hotline or by another leak. Until New Delhi or Beijing publishes an outcome paragraph, that is the only test the public has.