The joint statement issued by China’s Foreign minister Wang Yi and India’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval on June 22 indicating that Sino-India parleys to normalise bilateral relations are on the path to resolution, is a welcome straw in the wind. Almost exactly a year ago, S. Jaishankar, minister of external affairs, met with Wang Yi, China’s Vice President Han Zheng, and also President Xi Jinping and expressed confidence in sustaining improved bilateral ties. The fact that during his first visit to China in five years, Jaishankar not only met his counterpart, but also the top Chinese leadership, indicates the People’s Republic’s seriousness about initiating new beginnings in Sino-India ties which have been adversarial since the border war of 1962, and most recently the Galwan lake clash of May 2020.

Therefore, it’s surprising that the latest Wang Yi-Doval parley has resulted in little more than a statement saying more of the same. Over the year past, the international geo-political order has experienced massive churn. The four-month-long Israel-US-Iran war during which closure of the Strait of Hormuz has choked the supply of crude oil and LPG (liquid petroleum gas), has cost India an estimated Rs.35,000 crore by way of shaved GDP growth. Meanwhile, despite continuous reassuring noises, the bilateral Indo-US FTA (free trade agreement) being negotiated after President Donald Trump slapped punitive tariffs against Indian exports a year ago, has not reported any real outcomes.

Therefore, it is imperative that India, which is heavily dependent upon imports from China for a wide range of industries — chemicals, automobiles, electronics and machinery, among others — makes a determined effort to finally settle the Sino-India boundaries demarcation issue that has been hanging fire for over half a century. For this to happen, there has to be acceptance within the Indian establishment that Sino-India border lines in Aksai Chin in the north-west and in the north-east were arbitrarily drawn and imposed in the pre-independence era by the British, who it is well-known, had a reputation for drawing haphazard border lines during the era when the sun didn’t set on the British empire. Therefore, to insist that inherited Sino-Indian border lines drawn by imperious grandees of the Raj in India are written in stone, is irrational.

In the circumstances, this is an opportune moment for the BJP/NDA government at the Centre and all bonafide political parties — to agree to reopen the Sino-India border issue which has poisoned relations between Asia’s two most populous and potentially most prosperous nations. It’s time to actively develop China-India-Malaysia-Indonesia-Japan harmony to transform the 21st into the Asian century.