Indian and Chinese military commanders met on Monday to try to ease tensions at their disputed Himalayan border. An Indian government source said commanders met in Moldo, on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border dividing India’s Ladakh region from the Chinese held Aksai Chin, Reuters reported.
The meeting lasted several hours, with the Indian side pushing China to withdraw its troops back to where they were in April, a second Indian government source was quoted as saying. Beijing, in previous rounds of talks, had asked India to stop all construction work in what it says is Chinese territory.
India said 20 of its soldiers were killed in a clash last Monday with Chinese troops in a major escalation of a weeks-long standoff in the western Himalayas.
Major Indian traders called for a boycott of Chinese goods and the state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital of Mumbai, put three initial investment proposals from Chinese companies worth 50 billion rupees ($658 million) on hold, just days after signing the agreements.