China, India hold Border Talks, agree to continue search for Boundary Settlement

India and China issued a “rare joint text” of eight-points that committed an expert group to discuss an "Early and Substantial Harvest" of boundary delimitation, a formulation that had been absent from the separate readouts each side put out on the day of the talks, the Wire reported. 

The text was released on Wednesday (August 26), more than 24 hours after the talks between national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi ended. The outlet said it is significant especially since India and China have not issued a joint statement at a high level for a decade.

New Delhi and Beijing are preparing for a potential visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India for the BRICS summit next month. Xi is expected to attend the September 12-13 summit in New Delhi, although his visit has not yet been officially confirmed. If he travels to India, it would be his first visit to the country since his 2019 informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Mamallapuram

Reuters reported that Wang Yi and Ajit Doval ​had "comprehensive, in-depth, friendly and candid" discussions on border affairs and ⁠bilateral ties, 

According to the news wire, the two ⁠countries ​have agreed to hold the next round ​of border talks in India in 2027, the Chinese statement added.

India Has to Do Business With China, Says Jaishankar

External affairs minister S. Jaishankar  said India has to do business with China while modernising its domestic economy and building  manufacturing capabilities, the Wire reported. 

We have to do business with the entire world. That includes China too. Jaishankar said at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum.

The minister described the period between 2020 and 2024 as a “particularly bad patch” in India-China relations due to the situation along the border.

India is concerned about the predictability of supply chains, the minister had said. India’s $132 billion worth of imports from China in fiscal year 2025/26 were its highest from ​any nation, with a deficit of more than $100 billion in their total ​trade of $151.10 ⁠billion.

Russia, China, Iran, India head of states meet at SCO summit

Heads of states from India, China, Russia, Pakistan are meeting at SCO summit at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit is being seen by experts as a chance to give fresh momentum to India's engagement with Central Asia, India Today reported. They say the visit should focus on practical steps to improve connectivity with the region. The 10-member SCO includes China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and Belarus. 

For many SCO members, the summit will be an opportunity to show that they maintain strong ties on the global stage despite souring relations with the West, AP reported. 

Canada cancels trade deal with  US, PM Carney receives praise from world leaders  

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is receiving widespread praise from political leaders for rejecting a US trade proposal, the Guardian reported. 

Carney instructed his negotiators to walk away from trade talks as tariffs on an array of Canadian products took effect. Canada said it will retaliate in early September.

Carney said “Canada buys more American cars than the UK, Japan and China combined, and supplies 99% of our natural gas imports.”

The outlet said that the failure of the talks came as a surprise to Donald Trump, who had announced that a deal was imminent. “But as is so often the case, US negotiators had undermined their own position with a series of last-minute power moves, bullying the other side,” the report said. 

In this way, the failure was reminiscent of the way the Trump administration continues to blow up its own peace deals in the Middle East, by adding new conditions at the 11th hour and making false statements afterwards, the article noted. 

Carney said Canada would be seeking to diversify its relationships abroad, in what is obviously a new policy, based on a near-total lack of trust in the United States, a nation that blusters so unpredictably on the world stage that it is as if “its signature was written in pencil”, the newspaper quoted Carney. 

BRICS Environment Ministers oppose European Union’s Carbon Border Tax

BRICS countries opposed the European Union’s (EU) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) or Carbon Border Tax, calling it a unilateral, punitive, discriminatory and protection measure that is not in line with international law.

They reiterated that developed nations must urgently scale up climate finance, especially for climate adaptation. CBAM is an import levy on carbon-intensive goods like steel, iron, fertilisers, aluminium and cement. The tax was aimed as a measure to reduce the carbon footprint of imported goods, but the step has been seen as a trade barrier by developing countries, IE reported. 

Rolled out on October 1, 2023, with a reporting-only phase, CBAM mechanism covers six sectors: iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen and electricity. It entered its transition phase in October 2023, when importers had to report embedded emissions but did not have to pay the carbon levy. CBAM came into effect on January 1, 2026. 

Under the mechanism, EU importers must buy CBAM certificates corresponding to the embedded emissions in covered imports, unless an equivalent carbon price has already been paid in the country of origin.

India exports products covered by CBAM, including iron and steel, aluminium and fertilisers, to the EU. The mechanism also requires exporters to establish systems to measure, report and verify product-level emissions, Business Standard reported. 

China’s ambitious five-year plan to increase forest cover by 25.8% 

China published a 15th five-year plan for ecological protection that includes aims to curb biodiversity loss and increase forest cover to 25.8% by 2030, reported Xinhua. 

The plan states that by 2030, China's ecological spatial framework will be optimized, the trend of biodiversity loss will be effectively mitigated, the supply of premium ecological products will become more abundant. Specific targets include raising the Ecological Quality Index to 86.5, increasing the soil and water conservation rate to over 74%, and expanding forest coverage to 25.8%.

The EQI is a data indicator that reflects the extent of environmental pollution and degradation, and serves as a metric for assessing the overall quality of the natural environment.

The index is composed of four primary indicators: ecological pattern, ecological function, biodiversity, and ecological stress. The EQI is scored on a scale ranging from 0 to 100, reported China Daily. 

China’s ecological and environmental code came into force on 15 August, reported Xinhua adding thatthe code acts as a “guarantee for China’s long-term decarbonisation”, 

China Said to Weigh Potential Bid to Host UN Climate Summit

China is considering a proposal to host the annual UN climate summit in 2028, a move that would signal the country’s intent to show greater global leadership on the issue, Bloomberg reported. Officials in Beijing are debating the merits of a potential bid to stage the conference after India withdrew an offer to host the negotiations in April, according to people familiar with the issue, who requested anonymity to discuss private deliberations. 

The report noted that any  decision to do so would require support from the highest levels of government. China’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it isn’t aware of the situation, though the country will continue to support COP events.