India and China have agreed to reduce border tensions. Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister SJ Shankar said in a joint statement after their meeting in Moscow that the two countries had agreed on five points, agreeing that the current border situation was in their interests. The agreement was reached on the sidelines of the SCO summit, following a clash between Indian and Chinese forces in the western Himalayan border region this week. In this regard, a statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that relations between China and India are once again at a turning point. He said that as long as the two countries continue to move their relations in the right direction, there will be no problem. On the other hand, a statement issued by the Indian Foreign Ministry said that India has made it clear to China that it does not want to escalate the ongoing tensions over the LAC. The two countries have resorted to an enormous troops build-up along their de facto border, known as Line of Actual Control (LAC), since June 15 when 20 Indian soldiers were killed in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in hand-to-hand fighting involving clubs and rocks. China is also reported to have suffered an unspecified number of casualties, but it did not make it public. The deadly June clashes – the worst since the 1962 war – caused a backlash in India, forcing the government to ban dozens of Chinese apps, including wildly popular TikTok, and put a curb on investment from China. The heightened tensions may affect the bilateral annual trade that stands at $92bn. Several rounds of military and diplomatic talks achieved little success in ending the renewed tensions, with the two nations accusing each other of military confrontations in the past couple of weeks. The recent tensions erupted on August 29, when the Indian Army said it thwarted a “provocative action” by the Chinese soldiers to change the status quo at the southern bank of Pangong Tso Lake. Two days later, the Chinese government accused the Indian side of crossing the LAC. On September 7, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) accused the Indian Army of firing warning shots – a charge denied by the Indian side.