National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will host his Chinese counterpart and state councillor Yang Jiechi for the 20th round of annual boundary negotiations here on December 20-21.

This is going to be the first meeting between the two special representatives since the Doklam face off.

Doval, who is also the special representative for talks with China, met the Chinese state councillor and special representative Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a BRICS NSA meeting in Beijing.

On Tuesday, China had said that the Dokalam standoff posed a "major test" for the bilateral ties and lessons should be learnt from it to avoid a similar situation of its kind in the future.

"This Special Representative meeting is not only a high- level channel for the border issue discussion but also the platform for strategic communication," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing.

This also allows the two sides to exchange views on the international and regional issues of major concern, she said.

"In 2017, China-India relations have maintained a good momentum generally but the Dokalam incident posed a major test for the two countries. We should learn lessons from this incident to avoid any further conflict of this kind in the future," Hua said.