India-China Internal Security Cooperation Agreement

📌 Background & Key Features

• Signed: October 2018, during the visit of China’s Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi, co-chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh — India’s first-ever agreement of this specific type with any country.
• Scope: Intelligence-sharing and cooperation on counter-terrorism, organised crime, drug trafficking and human trafficking; came a year after the 73-day Doklam standoff (2017), as part of the post-Wuhan Summit reset.
• Symbolic note: Junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju (an Arunachal Pradesh MP) was deliberately included in the Indian delegation — a signal to Beijing on Arunachal Pradesh’s status, despite initial Chinese objections.
• The pact sits below the boundary-dispute-focused Special Representatives mechanism in the institutional hierarchy but reflects a functional "compartmentalisation" approach — cooperating on shared security concerns even amid unresolved border tensions.

📰 Current Affairs Linkage (2025-26)

• The compartmentalisation logic behind this 2018 pact is exactly what underpins the post-2024 border thaw — India and China now explicitly agree to "simultaneously advance border talks and bilateral cooperation without letting one block the other."

📝 PYQs for Practice (Mains)