Key facts
- Pakistan and China operationalized their Boundary Joint Commission, a move India rejects.
- India claims the territory involved in the commission, including the Shaksgam Valley, as its own.
- The Shaksgam Valley was ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963, an agreement India considers illegal.
- Experts suggest the timing of the operationalization may be to reassure Pakistan and signal to India.
- The commission aims to deepen cooperation on border management, joint surveys, trade, and people-to-people connectivity.
India has reacted sharply to the operationalization of a Pakistan-China Boundary Joint Commission, a move it deems to have no legal basis and to involve territory it claims as its own. The agreement, which Pakistan described as a "significant milestone," aims to deepen cooperation on border management, joint surveys, trade, and people-to-people connectivity.
The commission specifically concerns the Pakistan-China frontier, including the Shaksgam Valley, a roughly 5,180 sq km tract that Pakistan ceded to China in 1963. India asserts that this territory was part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir and was illegally occupied by Pakistan before being ceded to China, thus considering the agreement illegal and invalid.
Experts note that while a joint boundary commission was provided for in the 1963 Sino-Pak Agreement, the timing of its operationalization is significant. This could be linked to China's broader efforts to demarcate its boundaries and institutionalize exchanges amid instability on Pakistan's other borders. The move also serves as a signal to India that Beijing continues to view Kashmir through a Pakistani lens, reinforcing India's fear of a two-front threat.
However, some caution against interpreting the development as a direct military move against India, with no immediate implications for the Line of Actual Control (LAC) currently apparent. The significance may lie more in the gradual institutionalization of arrangements that India has consistently rejected.