India, China must first settle smaller disputes

In diplomacy, every word and phrase matters. This is especially true when two countries are negotiating a disputed border. So, the appearance of a phrase “early and substantial harvest on boundary delimitation” in an eight-point joint China-India statement — the first in 11 years — after the 25th round of talks between the special representatives (SR) is fraught with strategic implications. The phrase “early harvest” has been around for over a decade, but the usage of “substantial” is, well, substantial, even though all its implications are not yet clear. This comes on the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first…