, Indian\u00a0Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit\u00a0Beijing on MondayApril 18 to talk with his counterpart and top-ranking Chinese\u00a0military officials on how to implement the Bilateral Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) – a formal mechanism to improve security along their 4056 kilometres\u00a02,515-mile\u00a0Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is being considered the border between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officials here <\/span>took pains to say that the intention in principle to help the Indian and US militaries better coordinate better<\/span>, including exercises,\u00a0should not be interpreted as an\u00a0effort to partner with the US against growing Chinese influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, analysts said\u00a0India will find it difficult to walk the balancing act to better ties with China while simultaneously enhancing\u00a0its security interests in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n “New Delhi will have to convince China that it is not a front-line state in US\u00a0efforts to check Beijing’s influence in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean region,” said Nitin Mehta, a defense analyst in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the\u00a0Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:\u00a0“India is already a front-line state: It exists uncomfortably close to growing Chinese military power in Tibet, China’s presence in South Asia and in the Indian Ocean, and now China’s assertiveness in Southeast Asia, which threatens India’s sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) <\/span>to East Asia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n After coming to power in May 2014, the government of Indian Prime Minister\u00a0Narendra Modi government after coming to power in May 2014 has <\/span>kept up efforts to improve ties with Beijing, but several rounds of talks to resolve the boundary dispute over which the two countries fought a brief battle in 1962 have not yielded results, and prospects appear dim in the near future as well<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Modi government wants to segregate the bilateral strategic competition from other areas of possible cooperation. So long as the border dispute can be kept ‘cold,’\u00a0this strategy has a good chance of success,” Tellis\u00a0said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US Defense Secretary Ash Carter tours the Mangeshi Temple in Old Goa, India, on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635962229764779166-26259371132-32aa95d7dd-kjpg.jpg\")
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