India Defence Ministry: China Cuts PLA Presence Along LAC to 10 Brigades in 2025 as Modi-Xi Meet at BRICS Summit

China cut its People's Liberation Army presence along the disputed Himalayan border to 10 Combined Arms Brigade-sized formations in 2025, India's Ministry of Defence said in its Annual Report 2025-26, released Sunday, September 13. The document lands a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his first visit to India in seven years, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi.

The ministry called it a "significant reduction" in PLA forces opposite India's northern borders, though it did not disclose prior troop levels for comparison. A combined arms brigade typically runs around 3,000 soldiers with integrated infantry, armor, artillery and air defense units, according to NDTV. The ministry was careful to add that the Indian Army's own deployment across all LAC sectors remains "robust, well poised, and prepared to deal with any emerging contingency."

The pullback tracks with a year of restored diplomatic contact between the two nuclear powers, whose troops have faced off along the LAC since the 2020 Galwan Valley clash. The report cites the 33rd and 34th rounds of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination in March and July 2025, plus resumed Special Representatives talks on the boundary question in December 2024 and August 2025. Modi traveled to Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in August 2025, and military commanders held their 23rd Corps Commander-level meeting in Eastern Ladakh that October, according to both the Times of India and The Hindu.

The Hindu also reports a newer development the other outlets did not flag: on September 6, Indian and Chinese army commanders held their first-ever Corps Commander-level meeting in the Eastern Sector, at the Vacha-Damai border point in Arunachal Pradesh, expanding the military dialogue beyond Ladakh even as tensions persisted in the Taksing area of Upper Subansiri district. The de-escalation appears to be broadening geographically, not just easing in the original Ladakh flashpoint.

At the BRICS meeting itself, which multiple outlets place on Saturday, September 12, Xi told Modi the two countries could "fully learn" from each other's strengths, according to Times Now. India's Ministry of External Affairs said afterward that both leaders "expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question." Modi, for his part, thanked China for its support during India's BRICS chairmanship, per Times Now's account.

NDTV's own bullet-point summary of the report states that Chinese deployment fell "after India deployed 10 brigade-size forces along LAC." This mischaracterizes the report. The 10 Combined Arms Brigades cited by the Ministry of Defence are PLA formations that remain in place, not a new Indian deployment. The body of NDTV's own story, quoting the ministry directly, makes clear the 10 brigades are Chinese.

While the northern border cools, the same Army Annual Report 2025-26 shows the western front heating up. Ceasefire violations along the Line of Control with Pakistan jumped from 2 in 2024 to 163 in 2025, according to Newsbytes App's reporting on the document. Drone intrusions on the western border hit 863. The Army recorded six infiltration attempts and said 12 Pakistani terrorists were neutralized while trying to cross the LoC.

Jammu and Kashmir itself, the report says, saw violence and protests decline, with zero incidents of stone pelting and local recruitment into terrorist groups falling to just one recorded case for the year. The Army's report also references a post-Operation Sindoor review looking at force restructuring, jointness across service branches, and adoption of new technology, though the sources provide no further detail on what specific reforms resulted.

What the ministry's report does not specify is whether the reduced PLA brigade count reflects a formal disengagement agreement, a unilateral drawdown, or a seasonal troop rotation. It also does not say whether disputed patrolling rights in friction points like Depsang and Demchok, restored under a 2024 agreement, have been expanded. The next Special Representatives round on the boundary question has not been scheduled in any of the ministry's public statements, leaving the pace of further de-escalation an open question heading into the rest of 2026.