Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said that “maintaining peace and tranquillity” at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) shouldn’t be “conflated” with the broader question of resolving the boundary issue between New Delhi and Beijing.
Delivering a keynote address at the Indian Foreign Ministry-linked think tank Center for Contemporary China Studies (CCCS) on Tuesday, the minister reiterated that peace in border areas “clearly remains the basis for normal relations.”
“From time to time, this has been mischievously conflated with the sorting out of the boundary question,” Jaishankar remarked, underlining that the “prerequisite” for New Delhi in maintaining healthy ties with Beijing was “much more modest” than resolving the overall boundary question.
“… And even that was breached in 2020,” Jaishankar stated, in a reference to the eruption of the military standoff between the Indian Army and China's People’s Liberation Army in the eastern Ladakh region that began in April-May 2020.
Jaishankar also said that New Delhi has always striven for a “balance and stable” relationship with Beijing across multiple domains, which include political, economic, and military.
“Given the developments of 2020, they obviously focus on an effective defense of the border. This was notably undertaken even in the midst of COVID,” he said.
Spelling out New Delhi’s economic priorties vis-à-vis Beijing, Jaishankar said that “expanding” the domestic manufacturing base by promoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy of “Atmanirbhar Bharat" ("Self-Reliant India") remained the key for India.
“Internationally, building deeper relationships and promoting better understanding of its interests strengthens India. We must prepare to compete more effectively, especially in our immediate periphery,” he stated.
Jaishankar argued that establishing a “modus vivendi” between India and China after the 2020 clashes won’t be “easy.”
“Yet, it is a task that cannot be set aside. And this can only become sustainable on the basis of three mutuals: mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest,” he said.
The foreign minister described the last few years as a period of “serious challenge” for the India-China relationship, as well as for the entire Asian continent.
“The continuation of the current impasse will not benefit either India or China. New ‘normals’ of posture will inevitably lead to new ‘normals’ of responses,” he stated, adding that both capitals must take a “long-term view” of the relationship.
The foreign minister also said in his speech that New Delhi has taken a “determinedly bilateral approach” to its ties with Beijing for the last seven decades, which has been driven by a “sense of Asian solidarity” as well as “suspicion of third party interests” in the overall relationship.
The clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley area of the eastern Ladakh region were the deadliest between the two countries in over four decades and resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and five Chinese soldiers. Jaishankar said after the incident that the fatal clashes had “profoundly disturbed” ties between the neighbors.
Both New Delhi and Beijing said last month that they had disengaged their troops from the last remaining friction point in the eastern Ladakh region.
However, the Indian Army chief has since said that “de-escalation” of the situation was yet to be achieved in the Daulat Beg Oldie and Demchok areas, where around 50,000 troops from both sides are reportedly deployed amid complaints by Delhi that it is being denied access to patrol areas it used to before the military standoff.