China, India on right track

After two intense days of parleys between State Councillor Dai Bingguo and India's National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi on Tuesday, China and India signed a breakthrough agreement to set up a joint border management mechanism seeking to prevent occasional misperceptions from flaring up.

The proposal to set up the mechanism was initiated during Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi in December 2010. Now, apart from providing the much-needed momentum to the rather lackadaisical special representatives' (SR) talks, the mechanism is also expected to boost Sino-Indian mutual trust and generate atmospherics for delineating their border on the map followed by demarcating it on the ground.

More specifically, the mechanism aims to facilitate "real-time" contacts in case of allegations. But if viewed from a narrow perspective, even the innovative mechanism has its limitations.