External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said peace in border areas remains a prerequisite for restoring normal ties between India and China though this has been “mischievously conflated” with sorting out the boundary question from time to time.
His remarks came after troops from both the sides disengaged in mid-September from the last stand-off site at Patrolling Point 15 in Hot Springs-Gogra region in Eastern Ladakh.
Jaishankar reiterated India’s stand on ties with China while delivering an address on the theme “China’s foreign policy and international relations in the new era” at a conference organised by the Center for Contemporary China Studies (CCCS) here.
The minister said India must prepare to “compete more effectively, especially in our immediate periphery”. On the international stage, building deeper relationships and promoting a better understanding of India’s interests strengthens the country, he added. “Peace and tranquility in the border areas clearly remain the basis for normal relations. From time to time, this has been mischievously conflated with the sorting out of the boundary question,” Jaishankar said. “The truth is that the prerequisite has been and remains one much more modest; and even that was breached in 2020,” he said, referring to the massing of troops on the LAC by China and attempts to alter the status quo in the border areas.
India’s search for a “more balanced and stable relationship” with China stretches across “multiple domains and many options,” he said adding given the developments of 2020, they obviously focus on an effective defence of the border. “This was notably undertaken even in the midst of Covid,” the minister underlined.
Noting that the two countries must display the willingness to take a long-term view of their ties, Jaishankar said: “Establishing a modus vivendi between India and China after 2020 is not 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 added the continuation of the current impasse will not benefit either India or China.