For more than four decades, India and China have engaged in sustained dialogue over an undemarcated and unresolved boundary. Numerous formats have evolved from Joint Working Groups to Special Representatives’ Talks and military-to-military mechanisms. The outcome has remained unchanged. This is not because negotiations lack effort or sincerity, but because China derives strategic advantage from non-resolution. India however, cannot afford to abandon talks, even while recognising its futility.
China: Why Resolution Is Strategically Unattractive?
Sumit Ganguly, Manjeet Pardesi, and William Thompson in their book “The Sino-Indian Rivalry: Implications for Global Order (2023)”, argue that the India–China dispute is not about the border alone but also power and status in Asia. China approaches all relations through relative strength and not historical grievances. As China’s economic, military, and border infrastructure advantages have grown, it feels neither pressure to compromise nor any need to give up territory in a settlement that would require mutual concessions. The authors also underline a crucial asymmetry of perception. Indians view China as their principal strategic rival, while Chinese rank India below the United States and Japan. This disparity reduces Beijing’s sense of urgency. “Rivalries marked by material and cognitive asymmetries,” they note, “are more prone to persistence than termination.”
From Beijing’s perspective, a negotiated settlement would convert a flexible source of leverage into a fixed obligation, with little compensating gain.
Armed Coexistence: Negotiations Without Settlement
Stephen Westcott’s in book titled “Armed Coexistence (2022) argues that China is not trapped in a stalemate. It is broadly satisfied with the existing balance. Control over Aksai Chin, combined with overwhelming logistical and mobilisation advantages on the Tibetan plateau, places China in a much stronger position vis-à-vis India.
In this context, China has adopted what Westcott calls “armed coexistence”. A deliberate strategy of managing friction rather than resolving it.
He continues to resort to negotiations to prevent escalation and manage risk. Concurrently, the cultivated ambiguity allows continued tactical improvement. Talks, therefore, are not a pathway to closure but a stability management tool.
This framework explains why China can remain engaged diplomatically while resisting settlement.
Tibet and the Eastern Sector: The Structural Block
The limits of negotiation become clearer once Tibet is placed at the centre of the issue. In the early years, China explored what was known as a “package deal.” Under this approach, China would accept Indian control over Arunachal Pradesh (which China calls “South Tibet”) in return for India accepting Chinese control over Aksai Chin in the western sector. The logic was a broad territorial swap that reflected the ground reality in the decades of 1960s.
However, from the mid-1980s onwards, China gradually moved away from this idea. It began demanding “meaningful concessions,” especially in the eastern sector around Tawang, which holds political and religious importance linked to Tibet. As a result, the earlier notion of mutual accommodation gave way to a harder position, making a balanced settlement increasingly difficult. Tawang is not simply territory; it carries political and religious significance tied to Tibet and the legitimacy of Chinese rule over it.
The relative calm achieved during the 1990s rested on confidence-building measures that froze the dispute rather than resolved it. That equilibrium has now eroded.
This point is reinforced by Antara Ghosal Singh’s ORF study titled ‘In China’s Own Words (2022)’. Drawing on Chinese-language sources, the paper shows that Beijing no longer views Tibet solely as a defensive buffer. Instead, Tibet has become a strategic gateway into South Asia, central to infrastructure expansion, frontier governance, and civil-military integration. Border villages, transport corridors, and legal instruments such as the Land Border Law reflect this shift.
Within this strategic framework, territorial compromise especially in symbolically sensitive areas would undercut China’s Tibet policy. The boundary dispute is thus embedded in broader questions of regime legitimacy and strategic depth, making compromise structurally difficult.
Why China Settles Some Borders but Not India’s?
China’s history of border settlements is often cited to argue that resolution with India is feasible. Comparative evidence suggests the opposite. China has settled borders only when settling reduced vulnerability, stabilised a flank, or removed a distraction at acceptable political cost.
When China earlier explored a territorial swap, it was in a more vulnerable position. Its power was limited, its borders were unsettled, and it wanted stability on its periphery. Today, the situation is very different. China has achieved clear economic and military advantage along the border and enjoys strong infrastructure and mobilisation capacity in Tibet. With this growing asymmetry in its favour, China sees no reason to compromise, because settling the dispute would require giving up leverage without gaining anything in return.
Talks as Risk Management, Not Resolution
The post-2020 Ladakh crisis illustrates how negotiations function in practice. Disengagement talks reduced immediate friction but did not restore the pre-crisis status quo. China often negotiates after altering facts on the ground, not before. Dialogue serves to cap escalation, not reverse gains.
This pattern explains why talks coexist with infrastructure expansion, legal consolidation, and forward deployments. Negotiations are not a sign of strategic accommodation. They are an instrument of control.
Why India Must Still Persist with Talks
If settlement is unlikely, why should India continue?
First, dialogue is essential for escalation control. In a nuclearised environment with forward-deployed forces, communication mechanisms reduce the risk of miscalculation. The absence of talks would not coerce China into compromise. It would merely increase crisis instability.
Second, sustained engagement imposes diplomatic costs on China in the event of escalation. It reinforces India’s position as a responsible actor committed to stability, an important factor in shaping international perceptions and partnerships.
Third, talks buy time. Time for India to strengthen infrastructure, surveillance, and force posture. The experience of recent years suggests that talks do not weaken deterrence; inadequate capability does.
Finally, engagement helps prevent the boundary dispute from overwhelming every other aspect of the bilateral relationship. Even limited compartmentalisation is preferable to uncontrolled deterioration.
A Realistic Conclusion
The evidence from recent scholarship is consistent. China has little incentive to resolve the boundary because ambiguity preserves leverage, supports its Tibet-centric strategy, and aligns with its broader rivalry posture. Expecting negotiations to deliver a final settlement risks strategic self-deception.
Yet abandoning talks would be equally flawed. India must negotiate without illusion, treating talks as instruments of stability management rather than dispute resolution. The long-term balance will be shaped not by diplomacy alone, but by sustained deterrence, infrastructure parity, and strategic coherence.
Rivalries where asymmetry and positional competition exist do not end through negotiations. For India, realism and not resignation must guide engagement with China on the boundary question.
