India, Oct. 29 -- Now that India and China have reached an agreement on disengagement and patrolling in Depsang and Demchok in a step towards resolving the over four-year-long military confrontation in eastern Ladakh, can New Delhi sit back with a quiet sense of achievement? More importantly, can China be trusted to do what it has promised during bilateral meetings, including the recent one between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the margins of the recent BRICS summit? The answer is a firm 'No'.

For, even though the two Asian giants have seemingly buried the hatchet for now with the new pact being endorsed by their top leaders at Kazan in Russia on October 22, the yawning trust deficit that now marks bilateral ti...