China, India hold military-level talks amid border standoff

China and India on Saturday held high-level talks, amid the border standoff between the militaries of the two countries near eastern Ladakh. The talks were requested by India and were held at the Border Personnel Meeting Point in Maldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh, reported NDTV.

The Indian delegation was led by Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, Commander of 14 Corps, while the Chinese side was headed by the Commander of the Tibet Military District. Multiple local-level talks by regional military commanders have not made any headway so far.

Without specifically mentioning the talks, the Indian army in a statement said Indian and Chinese officials continue to remain engaged through the established military and diplomatic channels to address the current situation in the India-China border areas.

India says the Chinese military is hindering normal patrolling by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim, and strongly refutes Beijing's contention that the escalating tension between the two armies was triggered by trespassing of Indian forces across the Chinese side.

The present tension between the two sides came into sharp focus when reports of skirmishes between the soldiers of both sides were reported in the Pangong Lake region on May 5 and May 6.

This stand-off is the most serious since India and China, who fought a brief war in 1962, were locked in a similar faceoff in Doklam, in the eastern Himalayas, that lasted nearly three months in 2017.

A day before the military-level meeting, on Friday, India and China vowed not to allow their "differences" become disputes and agreed to handle them through peaceful dialogue while respecting each other's sensitivities and concerns. The positive approach came at a diplomatic dialogue through video conference between Naveen Srivastava, joint secretary (East Asia) in the external affairs ministry, and Wu Jianghao, director general in China's foreign ministry.