India-China relations ‘significantly disturbed’: Jaishankar, weeks after ‘75% issues sorted’ remark

Jaishankar was speaking at an event titled ‘India, Asia and the World,’ hosted by the Asia Society and the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

The Union Minister remarked that India has a “difficult history” with China, including the conflict in 1962.

“It took us 14 years to send back ambassadors after the war and another 12 years to reach a modus operandi. The basis for that was to develop a relationship ensuring peace in the border area,” he explained.

“To maintain peace, we established a series of agreements, each going into greater detail to ensure the border remained peaceful,” Jaishankar added.

However, he noted that in 2020, China moved a large number of forces to the LAC, thereby violating these agreements.

At the event, the Union Minister remarked that India has a “difficult history” with China, including the conflict in 1962. (Photo: X/@DrSJaishankar)

“Once troops were deployed very close up, which is “very dangerous”, it was likely a mishap could happen, and it did happen. There was a clash, and a number of troops died on either side,” he said.

This situation, according to him, overshadowed the relationship between the two countries. Jaishankar emphasized that until both sides restore peace and tranquillity on the border, it will be difficult to advance the broader India-China relationship.

“The focus over the last four years has primarily been on disengaging the troops. Right now, both sides have forward-deployed troops,” the External Affairs Minister mentioned.

Clarifying his comment about the 75% progress on the India-China border dispute, he explained: “When I said 75% of it has been sorted out, I was asked in a way to quantify—it’s only regarding the disengagement.”

He further stated that the parallel rise of both countries presents a very unique challenge in global politics.

“You have two neighbouring countries that are unique in the sense that they are the only two countries with over a billion people, both rising in the global order and often having overlapping peripheries, including a common border. So it’s really a very complicated issue. I think if you look at global politics today, the parallel rises of India and China present a very unique problem,” he said.

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