The deployment of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was significantly reduced by China in 2025, leading to stability along the Northern Borders, the Defence Ministry said.
"The year 2025 witnessed a significant reduction in the deployment of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces opposite the Northern Borders, with 10 Combined Arms Brigade-sized forces each deployed in areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and in traditional training areas. The deployment of the IA in all sectors along the LAC is robust, well-poised, and prepared to deal with any emerging contingency," the Ministry of Defence said in its Annual Report 2025–26.
As per the report, bilateral interactions between the two neighbours at political, diplomatic, and military levels facilitated positive developments along the Northern Borders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin in August 2025 before President Xi Jinping reached New Delhi earlier this week for the BRICS Summit 2026.
"The year witnessed renewed engagements with the 33rd and 34th rounds of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) meetings in March and July 2025 respectively. In addition, the year also witnessed the resumption of Special Representatives (SR) talks to address the India-China boundary question, with two rounds of talks held in December 2024 and August 2025," the report made public last week said.
The talks between Modi and Xi held on the sidelines of the BRICS summit on Saturday covered a range of issues, including reducing their trade deficit, tackling challenges like terrorism, and ensuring fair trade on multilateral platforms.
A Chinese readout said Xi made four specific points on promoting the steady and sustained development of China–India relations that included calibrating the direction of the ties with a clear objective to move forward and considering each other as partners rather than rivals.
The two leaders reaffirmed that both countries should take a strategic and long-term perspective on their ties and that differences should not become disputes, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The two leaders expressed commitment to a "fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable" resolution of the boundary question, proceeding from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of the two sides, it said.
The eastern Ladakh border row escalated after the Galwan Valley clash on June 15, 2020. Twenty Indian Army personnel laid down their lives in the clashes that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades. In 2021, China officially acknowledged that five Chinese military officers and soldiers were killed in the clashes with the Indian Army, though it is widely believed that the death toll was higher.
