India Says a Stable Border Is the Base for Normal Ties With China: Understanding the LAC and Border Peace Agreements
India's External Affairs Minister said that India and China do not have an agreed border, and that a stable border with peace and tranquillity (calm, with no clashes) is a basic condition for a normal relationship.
He noted that from 1975 to 2020, about 45 years, no soldier died on the India-China border. The 2020 clash in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, in which soldiers on both sides were killed, broke this long period of calm.
He said it took about four years of talks to restore peace in the border areas. Since 2024, the border has settled down to a great extent, and the overall relationship is moving towards normal in step with it.
Separately, on 2 October 2026, the Survey of India formally identified and gave standard names to 28 places and features in the Union Territory of Ladakh on its official map. These include friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) such as Gogra and Hot Spring.
China's foreign ministry objected to the naming. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) replied that Ladakh is an integral and inalienable (cannot be taken away) part of India, and that the names were fixed in consultation with the Ladakh administration and local people.
The Line of Actual Control (LAC): What It Is and Why It Differs from the LoC and the International Border
The Line of Actual Control, or LAC, is the line that separates the areas held by India from the areas held by China. It is not a border that both countries have agreed on and marked on the ground. It simply shows where each side's control actually stops today. India and China have different ideas about where this line runs, and that gap is the root of most face-offs between their soldiers.
The minister's remark that India and China "do not have an agreed border" is about the LAC: a line of actual control, not a legal boundary. The naming of Gogra, Hot Spring and other places in Ladakh on the Survey of India map is a way for India to record its claim along the western sector of the LAC, which is why China objected.
Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) on the India-China Border
Confidence-building measures, or CBMs, are agreed rules and habits that two rival countries follow so that small incidents on the border do not turn into fights or war. They include promises not to fire, limits on troops and aircraft near the border, regular meetings and hotlines between commanders. India and China built a large set of such CBMs from 1993 onwards. These CBMs kept the LAC free of deaths for decades, until the clash of 2020.
The minister's point that "the boundary has to be stable" for the relationship to move forward is the core idea behind these CBMs: keep the border calm first, then settle the boundary and grow other ties. The four years of talks he mentioned used the very mechanisms built by these agreements, including Corps Commander talks, the WMCC and the SR talks.
- India and China have no agreed border; the LAC is a line of actual control
- No deaths on the border from 1975 (Tulung La) to 2020 (Galwan, 15 June 2020)
- Galwan: 20 Indian soldiers killed; China admitted 4 deaths
- Disengagement at all friction points completed after the 21 October 2024 Depsang-Demchok agreement
- 2 October 2026: Survey of India gave standard names to 28 places and features in Ladakh, including Gogra and Hot Spring
- LAC length as per India: about 3,488 km
- 1996 CBM agreement: no firing within 2 km of the LAC