India China Corps Commander talks moved into new territory on Sunday, with the Indian and Chinese armies holding their first such meeting in the Eastern Sector at the Vacha Damai Border Personnel Meeting Point in Arunachal Pradesh.

The venue sits close to the Taksing area of Upper Subansiri district, where reports of tension along the frontier have surfaced in recent months.

A mechanism that has largely stayed confined to Ladakh

Corps Commander level meetings between the two armies have so far been held mostly at the Chushul Moldo Border Meeting Point in eastern Ladakh, a channel that grew in importance after the Galwan Valley clashes of June 2020, in which soldiers on both sides suffered casualties. Since then, defence sources said, India and China have continued to use military and diplomatic channels together to manage differences and maintain stability along the Line of Actual Control. Sunday's India China Corps Commander meeting extends that mechanism eastward for what sources describe as the first time, widening a channel that had been built almost entirely around the western sector.

Lt Gen Girish Kalia leads a delegation with ITBP representation

The Indian side was led by Lt Gen Girish Kalia, Commander of the 3 Corps, known as the Spear Corps, according to sources in the Ministry of Defence. His delegation of 12 included an Inspector General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, reflecting how closely the paramilitary force now works alongside the Army in these forums.

The Spear Corps is headquartered at Rangapahar in Nagaland and carries operational responsibility for the Indian Army's stretch of the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh. Two Corps formations share that frontier between them, the Tezpur based 4 Corps and the Rangapahar based 3 Corps, dividing a boundary that runs across some of the most difficult terrain the Army holds anywhere.

India China Corps Commander meeting precedes BRICS Summit hosting

The meeting comes days before India hosts the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi from September 11 to 13, an occasion Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to attend.

Until now, the sources said, the Corps Commander level mechanism had primarily addressed military tensions in the western sector of the boundary, in Ladakh, leaving the Eastern Sector to be managed through other channels even as troop density and infrastructure activity on both sides grew through the decade.

Diplomatic engagement continues on a track of its own

Contact between the two sides at the diplomatic level has kept pace through the year, running alongside the military channel rather than in place of it. On August 6, India and China held the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India China Border Affairs, coordinated through the Ministry of External Affairs and a standing channel that has handled routine border affairs for over a decade. This was followed on August 26 by the 25th round of talks between the two countries' Special Representatives on the Boundary Question, held in Beijing. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval represented India at the SR round, while Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, led the Chinese delegation.

An eight point outcome and two more meeting points

The two sides signed an eight point outcome document at the conclusion of the SR level talks, agreeing to set up two additional Border Personnel Meeting Points and new hotlines meant to strengthen communication and confidence building along the frontier, according to sources. One of the new points is proposed for the Eastern Sector under the operational responsibility of the 3 Corps, while the other is planned for the Central Sector. Joshimath, the sources clarified, is not among the newly identified points, closing off one line of speculation that had circulated locally.

The latest meeting also comes amid reports of continued Chinese activity and alleged incursions in the Taksing area, despite the WMCC and SR rounds held since the start of August. An Indian Army rebuttal to a similar wave of claims from the same district earlier this year had termed the reports incorrect and without basis. The diplomatic and military tracks agreed through August continue to run on their own schedule, separate from the local allegations circulating out of Upper Subansiri.

The Army has meanwhile kept up its own review of operational preparedness along the frontier. Army Chief Gen Dhiraj Seth recently visited the headquarters of the 3 Corps, where formation commanders briefed him on operational readiness and the steps under way to further strengthen combat capabilities across the sector, part of a wider pattern of command level visits the Army has carried out across its eastern formations through the year.