During talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at Benaulim in Goa on the sidelines of the SCO Foreign Ministers, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said that the situation at the India-China border is generally stable. Qin emphasized that both sides should consolidate the present achievements and strictly abide by the relevant agreements while pushing for further cooling and easing of the conditions for sustainable peace and tranquility at the frontier.
In an apparent reference to the ongoing military standoff in Eastern Ladakh which brought relations to a standstill, Qin restated China’s oft-repeated recent stance that the current situation on the China-India border is generally stable. The two sides also discussed issues relating to the SCO, G20 and BRICS. Jaishankar tweeted that the focus remained on resolving outstanding issues and ensuring peace and tranquility in the border areas.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently told his Chinese counterpart that China’s violation of existing border agreements “eroded” the entire basis of ties between the two countries and that all issues relating to the frontier must be resolved in accordance with the existing pacts. Meanwhile, the Indian and Chinese armies held the 18th round of talks on ending the border row, but there was no indication of any clear forward movement in ending the three-year row. The ties between India and China nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.
The Indian and the Chinese troops are locked in a standoff at a few friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh for the last three years, though they disengaged in several places following a series of military and diplomatic talks. India maintains that the relationship between the two countries should be based on ‘three mutuals’ mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests.
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