India, China to hold top-level military talks on January 12 amid 20-month confrontation in Ladakh

NEW DELHI: India and China will hold the 14th round of top-level military talks on January 12, in yet another bid to defuse the 20-month-long confrontation in eastern Ladakh that has seen them keep around 50,000 troops each forward deployed for the second consecutive winter. There was a cautious "wait-and-watch" assessment in the Indian defence establishment on Friday, given that the 13th round of corps commander talks on October 10had ended in a bitter stalemate with China even refusing to complete the stalled troop disengagement at Patrolling Point-15 (PP-15) in the Hot Springs-Gogra-Kongka La area. Moreover, the talks next week…