India and China held the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) in New Delhi on August 6, reviewing the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and discussing outstanding boundary issues.
The Indian delegation was led by Joint Secretary (East Asia) Sujit Ghosh, while the Chinese side was headed by Hou Yanqi, Director General of the Boundary and Oceanic Affairs Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the two sides held “frank discussions” on the situation along the LAC and underlined that “maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.”
India and China agreed to continue using existing diplomatic and military channels, including the WMCC and local commander-level meetings, to resolve outstanding issues and “avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation along the LAC”.
The two sides also held detailed discussions, following the 24th round of Special Representatives’ talks, on boundary delimitation, border management, mechanism-building and trans-border cooperation.
India reiterated the need for an early meeting of the Expert Level Mechanism on trans-border rivers and stressed the importance of sharing technical details on upstream projects.
