India-China: EAM S Jaishankar says border peace essential for normalising ties

The Line of Actual Control LAC has to be stable for normalising relations between India and China External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said asserting that any disturbance along the border will have consequencesJaishankar also linked expansion of trade and investment ties between the two countries to peace and tranquillity along the borderThe point we make to the Chinese is If you want a normal relationship if the rest of the relationship is to move its common sense It is a nobrainer that the boundary has to be stable and that we need peace and tranquillity in the border areas he saidJaishankar speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Tuesday evening noted that the situation along the LAC has settled down to a great extent since 2024 and that the relationship is commensurately moving towards normalcyIn the last few months both sides have rolled out a series of confidencebuilding measures to repair ties frayed by the more than fourandahalfyear military standoff in eastern Ladakh The faceoff ended in late 2024To a question on whether India would allow more Chinese investment in the country in case there was an early harvest agreement on the boundary question Jaishankar broadly said that various possibilities are being looked atWe are now looking at those possibilities and we have to see where we go But we are not insisting that you have to solve the boundary issue in order to do business What we are saying is the bar is lower The bar is maintain peace and tranquillity I wouldnt link the early harvest to anything other than the boundary question resolution Anything we do on any policy we have on business market access issues will be dealt with separatelyThe external affairs minister also flagged concerns over economic issues with ChinaWe also have very major economic issues with China If you look today at the trade balance it is completely tilted towards China he saidThe tilt is extremely onesided and in many sectors where we have done well with the rest of the world we have not had market access we have not had a successful business operation for that sector in China he saidWe do believe today that were not getting a level playing field in China in the manner in which we have given a level playing field to them he notedJaishankar also referred to the Galwan valley clashes of 2020 and explained how it brought the ties under severe strainFrom 1975 till 2020 a good 45 years no blood was shed on that border The last time there were fatalities was in 1975 In this period IndiaChina relations did grow he saidThen in 2020 when we were in the midst of the Covid lockdown we had a series of border issues and it culminated in a clash in which a number of soldiers were killed on either side he saidFor us what it represented was a very profound departure from the situation that was prevailing since 1975 If the peace and tranquillity in the border areas are disturbed then the relationship will have consequences he saidJaishankar said those consequences were very visible in the next few years until peace and tranquillity was restoredThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever