Days before an expected meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday that the clash on the Royal Line of Control (LAC) cannot be disassociated from the overall bilateral relationship.
Jaishankar, who will meet with Wang on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Moscow on September 10, said the breach of several understandings on border management dating back to 1993 raises “very important questions” about the state of ties with China.
“If peace and tranquility on the border is not a fact, then it cannot be that the rest of the relationship continues on the same basis, because clearly peace and tranquility is the basis of the relationship,” he said while participating in an online interaction. organized by The Indian Express newspaper on the occasion of the launch of his book ‘The India Way’.
Jaishankar declined to go into detail about what exactly he would discuss with his Chinese counterpart, but said his position would be based on certain general principles, including how peace and quiet on the border over the past 30 years had allowed the rest of the relationship will progress. . During this period, China had become India’s second most important trading partner despite some differences and problems, he noted.
He stressed that “the state of the border cannot be de-linked from the state of the relationship,” and the standoff had highlighted a series of understandings with China on border management dating back to 1993, he said. These understandings stipulate that both countries will keep forces at a minimum level at the border and will also shape the behavior of the troops and the restrictions on them, he added.
“If these [understandings] they are not observed, then very, very important questions arise, ”said Jaishankar. The “extremely serious situation” in LAC since the beginning of May requires “very deep talks between the two parties at the political level,” he added.
Jaishankar will meet Wang less than a week after a meeting between the defense ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the SCO defense ministers meeting in Moscow. That meeting was unable to advance the troublesome disengagement process, and several rounds of political and diplomatic talks have also produced no results.
Acknowledging existing problems, competition, and the “difficult recent history” between India and China, Jaishankar dismissed the claim that New Delhi had misinterpreted Beijing’s intentions. He pointed to the two informal summits that took place after an understanding was reached in June 2017 and said that these meetings had focused on sovereignty, security, connectivity and economy issues after leaders felt the need to participate directly. .
These conversations have also focused on “how to find accommodation,” he said.
Jaishankar also acknowledged that both sides will now maintain their positions and that the key issue is reaching an understanding on the withdrawal. “I have a very practical problem at the moment, which is a disconnection and de-escalation problem,” he said.
He said that he had left the question of the future relationship with China open in his book. “India and China should try to find a mutual accommodation because their ability to do so will determine [whether this is an] Asian century or not, ”he said.
Jaishankar also spoke on other topics such as Brexit, the Covid-19 crisis and the stagnant relationship with Pakistan, saying that this was not about “zero diplomacy.” Given Pakistan’s “attachment to cross-border terrorism,” it would be wrong for New Delhi to allow Islamabad to set the agenda and pace for the talks, he said.
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