India and China have completed pulling back their troops from two face-off points on their disputed Himalayan frontier as planned.
The nuclear-armed neighbors reached a deal last week on patrolling the frontier in the Indian territory of Ladakh to end a four-year military stand-off, paving the way for improved bilateral political and business ties.
Both troops exchanged boxes of sweets on Thursday at two points on their contested high-altitude border, a week after the leaders of the Asian rivals held a rare meeting.
Photographs released by the Indian army showed soldiers shaking hands and handing gift-wrapped boxes of sweets in the rugged icy mountains of Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, to mark India’s Hindu festival of lights, Diwali.
China and India, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals and have accused each other of trying to seize territory along their unofficial divide, known as the Line of Actual Control.
It signaled a potential thaw between the nuclear-armed neighbors since clashes between their troops in 2020 over their border, which killed at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
After the 2020 clashes, more than 20 rounds of military talks were held.
Both sides pulled back tens of thousands of troops and agreed not to send patrols into a narrow dividing strip.
But two major points remained with troops and tanks on both sides staring at each other.
India is wary of its northern neighbor, and disputes over their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier have been a perennial source of tension.
China claims all of India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, considering it part of Tibet, and the two fought a border war in 1962.
