China's State Councillor Dai Bingguo and India's National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan will meet over two days to discuss their respective claims.
Twelve rounds of talks have been held before, alternating between venues in the two nations, and progress has been slow.
Beijing, sensitive to restiveness in Tibet, claims all of the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and is particularly inflexible over the state's Buddhist enclave of Tawang.
The area was the birthplace of one of the earlier Dalai Lamas and is the site of an important Buddhist monastery.
India says it holds China to an earlier agreement that settled populations cannot be disturbed in any eventual border settlement. Beijing says that formulation does not apply to Tawang.
'The first priority should be to try and exchange maps showing the lines of ac-tual control without prejudice to the eventual claim lines,' says retired brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal of New Delhi's Centre for Land Warfare Studies.
'We have done that with China in the least contentious areas, but need to do that over Arunachal in the east and La-dakh in the west to prevent any border incident leading to a larger accident. There cannot be anything more substantial for the moment.'
The decision to resume talks underscores Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's desire to explore lasting settlement of outstanding issues with India's most important neighbours, China and Pakistan.
Dr Singh has shown significant flexibility towards Pakistan lately, attracting much domestic criticism in the process.
While public opinion in India probably will not tolerate similar accommodation of China, at whose hands India suffered a military defeat in 1962, the Indian leader has shown he is open to fresh thinking.
Among his recent gestures to China was a decision to appoint the well-regarded Dr S. Jaishankar as his envoy to Beijing.
Though not a China expert, Dr Jaishankar, now High Commissioner to Singapore, was a key architect of last year's landmark civilian nuclear agreement with the US. That deal was supervised directly by the Prime Minister's office.
'There are two schools of thought on China,' says an Indian official with knowledge of the preparations for the talks. 'One says the relationship is developing in so many fields, so bury the border issue for later. The other says deal with it now before China becomes more powerful and turns its focus to India after fully settling Taiwan.'
Still, Mr Dai and Mr Narayanan are meeting amid rising unease in the relationship.
Beijing has been wary of the strategic overtones of the nuclear deal that former president George W. Bush inked with India, as well as New Delhi's growing economic and military ties with Tokyo.
Last year, it was markedly unenthusiastic when the US pushed through a special waiver for India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
More recently, it unsuccessfully tried to block a US$2.9 billion (S$4.2 billion) loan from the Asian Development Bank for development projects in Arunachal Pradesh. In addition, Chinese patrolling of the Arunachal border has been more assertive lately, according to Indian officials.
In response, India has embarked on a US$3 billion plan to modernise its border roads. It briefly stationed its front-line Sukhoi strike aircraft close to the China border earlier this year and is upgrading several border airfields. Arunachal governor J.J. Singh, a former army chief, has said New Delhi would raise two divisions of troops to defend the area.
Chinese comments on these developments have been acidic. An editorial in the Global Times, controlled by the People's Daily, has warned that the escalation of troop presence was a dangerous thing. It asked India to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China.
'Despite all this, political leaders on both sides have shown great wisdom in not allowing the border dispute to affect bilateral relations in other fields,' says strategic affairs expert B. Raman.
'Bilateral trade continues to gallop. Chinese companies are winning an increasing number of construction contracts in India, and more and more Chinese students are coming to India to improve their English while Indian students go over to study medicine.' ST6/8/09
Asian giants...
# IN CONTENTION: India says China illegally occupies 38,000 sq km of its territory in Jammu and Kashmir state. China claims 90,000 sq km in the east, covering almost all of India's Arunachal Pradesh state.
There are also conflicting claims over parts of the border along the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
# IN CONVERGENCE: India and China are set to discuss common positions on climate change this month and cooperate in monitoring melting Himalayan glaciers.
China is now India's No. 2 trade partner after the European Union, edging out the US. Chinese firms are increasingly clinching contracts for construction in India, while Indian IT firms such as NIIT and TCS are welcome in China.
Military ties are growing too: There have been two anti-terrorism joint exercises, and naval ships have exchanged port visits.
