On May 4, Senior Col. Zhou Bo (ret.), senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy of Tsinghua University, and a China Forum expert, attended a seminar held by the Institute of Chinese Studies titled “Two Years of Crisis in Eastern Ladakh: The Way Ahead.”

The panel discussion, featuring former Indian Ambassadors to China Ashok Kantha and Gautam Bambawale as well as Lt. Gen. DS Hooda (ret.), took stock of the India-China border clash in June 2020 and its causes, and proposed measures to better manage the Line of Actual Control.

Zhou Bo reiterated China’s position that the incident was entirely caused by India’s violation of consensus and unilateral provocation, which happened in China-controlled territory. The historical border issue between the two countries is an intricate long-term challenge, but the many confidence building measures between the two militaries means that border peace is possible as long as there is a political will for that, he said.

In response to the Indian side’s rhetoric that “relations between the two countries can return to normal only after Chinese troops are completely withdrawn from the Indian side of the border and the border area returns to the status quo before April 2020,” Zhou argued that one of the most important lessons on China-India relations since Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit to China is that the bilateral relationship should not be linked with the border situation, and the healthy development of the former could potentially facilitate the ultimate settlement of the latter.