Thaw in India-China relations presents many opportunities

The first step to rebuild could be to expand people-to-people exchanges so as to enhance mutual understanding and address each other's concerns.

O n the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, the biggest surprise was the meeting between Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi and President of PRC, Xi Jinping that broke the ice of the difficult IndiaChina relations, towards bringing it back on track.

Since the border conflict in 2020, the bilateral relations had again fallen to the lowest point ever since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. During this period, the world is also experiencing an increasingly volatile geopolitical, economic situation and the strategists and academics in both countries had low expectations for a quick turnaround in bilateral relations. Therefore, the leaders' meeting came as a surprise to both countries as well as to the rest of the world.

The political and diplomatic relations between the two sides had become quite tense after the Galwan skirmish in 2020.

China had proposed that the two countries should keep the border issue on a separate page and progress the other bilateral issues such as trade cooperation and cultural exchanges whereas, India's stand was that till the issue of friction points were resolved to maintain sustainable peace and tranquillity along the border, rest of the bilateral relations could not progress further. Before the Kazan BRICS summit, the two leaders had attended a number of multilateral fora, but not met individually.