New Delhi: Indo-Chinese relations are “not doing very well” at the moment, but India is “not looking to other countries to sort out what is really an issue between us and China”, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said on Monday (July 29).
Jaishankar, who was in Tokyo to participate in a meeting between the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping, was asked during a press conference of his views on China and what he expected of the Quad in solving the tense relations between the two countries.
“Right now, I have to be honest, our relations with China are not doing very well,” Jaishankar said in response to the first question.
He continued: “The main reason for that was that in 2020, during COVID, China brought very large forces to the border areas between India and China in violation of agreements we had with China,” adding that this had led to clashes and fatalities on both sides.
The consequences of the clashes “continue” because the border issue is still unresolved, Jaishankar said. “So right now, if you asked me how are your relations with China, they’re not good, they’re not normal right now.”
Indian and Chinese troops clashed in the Galwan Valley along the long-contested Line of Actual Control in Ladakh in 2020.
Twenty Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers were killed, marking the first military casualties along the India-China border in four decades.
There has been disengagement along some places in the region with the creation of buffer zones separating either side, but the Chinese have refused to undertake any disengagement at two places, where soldiers of both sides continue to block each other.
Jaishankar has said that bilateral ties between India and China cannot return to normalcy until the border issue is resolved.
“But obviously, as a neighbour, we hope for a better relationship, but that can only happen if they respect the the Line of Actual Control and if they respect agreements that they have signed in the past,” he said during Monday’s press conference.
When asked of the Quad’s potential role in solving the Sino-Indian relationship, the external affairs minister said: “I think it is for the two of us to talk it over and find a way.”
He added that while it was “obvious” that other countries would have an interest in India-China ties because of the impact they can have on the rest of the world, “we are not looking to other countries to sort out what is really an issue between us and China”.
“We have been very clear with the Chinese that this is an issue between us and we need to settle it between us … The issue is a very clear one, which is if countries have agreements, countries must abide by agreements,” he said, referring to his meeting last week with his Chinese opposite number, Wang Yi.
The Quad is the colloquial term for the informal grouping of four countries – the United States, Japan, India and Australia – that first met in the mid-2000s but resumed activities in 2017 with the US championing its Indo-Pacific strategy.
On Monday, the Quad countries’ foreign ministers signalled growing anxiety about the situation in the East and South China Seas, although without explicitly naming China.
Significantly, for the first time, the Quad joint statement collectively backed the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal ruling that favoured the Philippines’s claim in the South China Sea dispute, a decision not recognised by China.
The introduction of stronger language by the Quad also comes against the backdrop of the recent escalation in tension between China and the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal dispute.
