NEW DELHI -- India and China have held regular border-related negotiations since 1981 in the longest such process between two nations since the end of World War II. Yet, after 23 years of negotiations, the two Asian giants have not achieved the bare minimum -- a mutually defined line of control separating them -- even as they deceptively call their disputed front line the "line of actual control."
The latest round of border negotiations in New Delhi on July 26 and 27 testified to the lack of real progress.
Since negotiations first began, China has emerged as a global economic and political force and strengthened its leverage vis-a-vis India, both directly and through transfers of weapons of mass destruction to Pakistan and strategic penetration of Myanmar.