As mammoth civilisational states, China and India have for long lived with imprecise borders. After they re-emerged as modern states during the last century, China and India have been acutely conscious of their territoriality.

Beijing, however, devotes a lot more energy than New Delhi, to make sure that the national and local bureaucracies are fully aware of the meaning of territorial sovereignty and its effective exercise on the ground.

Late last month, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs established a new department to better manage China’s borders on both land and water. Called the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, the new unit will be responsible for a number of functions.

These include negotiating land and maritime boundary delimitation, demarcation and joint inspections with neighouring countries, cartography, and oversight of joint trans-border projects.

What the new department does is to consolidate these various functions that were scattered all over the Foreign Office and better coordinate with other governmental agencies that are involved in a variety of tasks relating boundary management.

Although China has sorted out most of its boundary disputes, Beijing wants to be on top of the issues that could arise from the unresolved territorial disputes, including those on land with India and in the South China Sea with a number of Southeast Asian nations.

The new focus on the boundaries is not merely at the national level. In recent weeks China has been showing off the significant improvement in the patrolling of its borders by the security forces, modernisation of boundary infrastructure, and strengthening of the administrative apparatus all along its long frontiers.

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