Describing India-China ties as “significantly disturbed”, foreign minister S Jaishankar said the relationship is key to Asia’s future and will influence not just the continent but the entire world.
Speaking at a think tank in New York on Tuesday, he said the parallel rise of India and China presents a “very unique problem” in current global politics. “In a way, you can say that if the world is to be multi-polar, Asia has to be multi-polar.Therefore, this relationship will influence… perhaps the future of the world as well,” Jaishankar said.
Jaishankar, who will address the UNGA on Saturday, recently said that the two neighbours have resolved 75% of “disengagement problems” in eastern Ladakh. Referring to those remark, he said Tuesday, “When I said 75% of it has been sorted out – I was asked in a way to quantify – it’s only of the disengagement. So, that’s one part of the problem. The main issue right now is the patrolling. You know, how do we, both of us, patrol up to the Line of Actual Control.”
India and China have intensified diplomatic and military talks in the past few months to fully resolve the military standoff in eastern Ladakh, ahead of a possible meeting between PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in October. Chinese ambassador to India Xu Feihong said last week that ties are at a crucial stage of improvement.
Jaishankar said the patrolling arrangements after 2020 have been disturbed. “So, we’ve been able to sort out much of the disengagement, the friction points, but some of the patrolling issues need to be resolved.”
The minister said that after disengagement, “there is the larger issue as both of us have brought a very large number of troops up to the border”.
“So, there is what we call the de-escalation issue, and then there is the larger, the next step is really, how do you deal with the rest of the relationship?”
Jaishankar added there were a series of agreements between the two countries that went into greater detail on how to make sure the border remained peaceful and stable.
“Now the problem was in 2020, despite these very explicit agreements, we saw that the Chinese – we were all in the middle of Covid at that time – moved a large number of forces in violation of these agreements to the Line of Actual Control. And we responded in kind,” he said.
“Once troops were deployed very close up, which is ‘very dangerous’, it was likely a mishap could happen, and it did happen,” Jaishankar added.
Referring to the 2020 Galwan clash, the minister said, “So there was a clash, and a number of troops died on either side, and that has since, in a sense, overshadowed the relationship. So, until we can restore peace and tranquillity on the border and ensure the agreements signed up to are adhered to, it’s obviously difficult to carry on with the rest of the relationship.”