External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar today made it clear that relations with China would remain impaired if the situation on the border did not improve, while asserting that India has delegitimised cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
Addressing a press conference to highlight the achievements of NDA government during its nine years in office, he said China tried to coerce India in April-May 2020 by its military actions in eastern Ladakh in violation of bilateral agreements.
‘We want peace with China, but if peace agreements are violated, then what can be done? However, talks happen. We spoke to China just before the Galwan Valley incident (15 June 2020) happened… We told them about the movement of their troops. I spoke to them just a day after Galwan. We have to find a way to disengage. Otherwise, relations will remain impaired,” he said.
While responding to a series of questions on Rahul Gandhi’s statements on China capturing Indian territories, Jaishankar said the Congress leader was in the habit of saying so many things.
“He (Rahul) referred to a bridge being built by China on Pangong Tso Lake. But that was on territory captured by China in 1962. China has captured territories in India since the 1950s. However, in 2020 we had to do forward deployment, which caused tension,” he said.
Describing the situation with China as ”complicated”, the minister said that such issues should not be reduced to a point-scoring exercise but should be debated.
“People make it out as if it’s happened now. Our own borders were neglected for a long time and whenever efforts were made to develop border infrastructure, environmental issues were raised. Till 2014, our border infrastructure budget was Rs 4,000 crore, which has now gone up to Rs 40,000 crore,” he said.
On China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which India has opposed on the ground that the project runs through Indian territory in Jammu and Kashmir, Jaishankar said India would not get swayed by coercion, inducements and false narratives.
Regarding India’s other adversary Pakistan, Jaishankar made it unequivocally clear that India would not tolerate terrorism.
He rejected that there was any controversy over the ‘Akhand Bharat’ map in the new Parliament building, saying that it was not a political issue and that friendly nations like Nepal have understood India’s explanation. However, a nation like Pakistan did not have the capability to understand it.
Jaishankar expressed his concern over a parade float in Canada’s Brampton City celebrating the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“I think there is a bigger issue involved…Frankly, we are at a loss to understand other than the requirements of vote bank politics why anybody would do this…I think there is a larger underlying issue about the space which is given to separatists, to extremists, to people who advocate violence. I think it is not good for relationships, not good for Canada,” he said.