New Delhi: India and China continued discussions on boundary delimitation and reviewed the situation along the Line of Actual Control at the latest round of border consultations, where the two sides also reportedly agreed to use existing diplomatic and military mechanisms to avoid “misunderstanding and miscalculation” along the frontier.The 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China Border Affairs was held in New Delhi on August 6, with the Indian delegation led by MEA Joint Secretary (East Asia) Sujit Ghosh and the Chinese delegation headed by Hou Yanqi, director general of the boundary and oceanic affairs department at the foreign ministry.According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement, the two sides held “frank discussions” and reviewed the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), while underlining that maintaining “peace and tranquillity in the border areas is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.”Both sides agreed to continue using “existing diplomatic and military channels”, including the WMCC and local commander-level meetings, to resolve outstanding issues and avoid “misunderstanding and miscalculation” along the LAC, the MEA stated.Following the October 2024 agreement on patrolling arrangements that resolved the last remaining friction point of the four-year-old military stand-off, India and China revived several suspended dialogue mechanisms and gradually restored broader engagement, including direct flights, the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra, border trade and high-level political exchanges. The Indian and Chinese readouts broadly mirrored each other in stating that officials discussed boundary delimitation, border management, mechanism-building and trans-border cooperation as a follow-up to the outcomes of the 24th round of Special Representatives’ talks. Beijing’s statement added that the two sides had agreed to jointly prepare for the 25th meeting of the Special Representatives.The latest meeting marks the second consecutive WMCC in which boundary delimitation has figured on the agenda. As The Wire reported after the previous meeting in Beijing in May, the inclusion of delimitation signalled that the two sides had begun translating the political understanding reached during the 24th Special Representatives’ talks in August 2025 into official discussions under the WMCC framework. At that meeting, India had announced the creation of an expert group under the WMCC to explore an “early harvest” in boundary delimitation, while China said the two sides would explore advancing delimitation negotiations “in areas where conditions are ripe”. Just as in previous editions, there were, however, some differences in emphasis between the two official accounts for the latest WMCC meeting. While the MEA highlighted the role of border management mechanism and the need to avoid “misunderstanding and miscalculation”, the Chinese foreign ministry simply said both sides had agreed to maintain communication through diplomatic and military channels and jointly safeguard peace and tranquillity in the border areas.The Indian side also reiterated the need for an early meeting of the Expert Level Mechanism on Trans-Border Rivers and stressed the importance of sharing technical details on upstream projects. As at the previous WMCC meeting in May, the Chinese readout made no reference to trans-border rivers.Set up in 2012, WMCC is the principal diplomatic mechanism for consultations on border management below the level of the Special Representatives. It coordinates diplomatic and military engagement on maintaining peace and stability along the LAC, while the Special Representatives’ mechanism remains the highest-level channel for negotiating the boundary question.