Normal ties hinge on peaceful border: India to China’s Wang

This was the message conveyed by national security adviser Ajit Doval and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in their separate meetings with China’s foreign minister Wang Yi during his working visit to New Delhi. The message was also a riposte to Wang’s reiteration of China’s stated position that the LAC standoff should be set aside while the two sides take forward ties in other spheres.

Wang, the first senior Chinese leader to travel to India since the May 2020 standoff, began his visit late on Thursday, first holding talks with Doval and then meeting Jaishankar for almost three hours. By the time Wang left India for Nepal on Friday afternoon, it was clear there was no immediate breakthrough on the LAC standoff during his talks with Indian interlocutors.

Jaishankar and Wang exchanged perspectives on the Ukraine crisis and both sides agreed on the importance of an immediate truce and a return to dialogue. Jaishankar explained why Wang’s remarks on the Kashmir issue at an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Pakistan earlier this week were “objectionable”, and also raised India’s terrorism-related concerns in the context of Pakistan.

In the context of the standoff in Ladakh sector, Jaishankar referred to 15 rounds of military talks and eight rounds of diplomatic talks that have resulted in disengagement at several friction points and said more needs to be done.

“This needs to be taken forward since the completion of disengagement is necessary for discussions on de-escalation to take place. I would describe our current situation as work in progress, obviously at a slower pace than desirable and my discussions with [Wang] today were aimed at expediting the process,” he said at a media briefing.

Noting that peace and tranquillity in the border areas were the basis for stable and cooperative ties, Jaishankar said he was “very honest” in conveying “our national sentiments” that tensions created by China’s troop deployments since April 2020 “cannot be reconciled with a normal relationship between two neighbours”.

Responding to a question on whether the meeting with the Chinese minister amounted to a return to normalcy in bilateral engagements, Jaishankar emphasised that the situation is “not normal” because of large deployments of Chinese troops in violation of the 1993 and 1996 pacts on border management, and the peace and tranquillity in border areas being disturbed.

“So…if you ask me, is our relationship normal today? My answer to you is no, it is not. And it cannot be normal if the situation in the border areas is abnormal,” he said.

When Wang spoke about China’s desire for a return to normalcy, Jaishankar said he had told his Chinese counterpart that India too wants a stable and predictable relationship. “But restoration of normalcy will obviously require a restoration of peace and tranquillity. If we are both committed to improving our ties, then this commitment must find full expression in ongoing disengagement talks,” he said.

Jaishankar welcomed the “considerable progress” made in talks so far, but said “they haven’t sorted out the issue in entirety”.

He added, “So, our effort today is to sort out the issue in entirety and deal with the disengagement. So that it then allows us to look at the de-escalation possibilities.”

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