Stating that disengagement has now been fully achieved in Eastern Ladakh through a step by step process, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday made it clear that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in border areas is a pre-requisite for the development of India-China ties.
”In the coming days, we will be discussing both de-escalation as well as effective management of our activities in the border areas,” he said, making a statement in the Lok Sabha on India-China ties and the border understanding reached in October.
He said India-China ties have been abnormal since 2020 when peace and tranquility in the border areas were disturbed as a result of Chinese actions. ”Recent developments that reflect our continuous diplomatic engagement since then have set our ties in the direction of some improvement,” he added.
Dr Jaishankar said India remains committed to engaging with China to “arrive at a fair, mutually acceptable framework for boundary settlement”.
The minister’s remarks came nearly two months after India and China announced a major breakthrough in talks to end the prolonged military stand-off in eastern Ladakh.
He also said that in the months following the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash, “we were addressing a situation that had not only seen fatalities for the first time in 45 years but also a turn of events serious enough for heavy weaponry to be deployed in close proximity to the LAC”.
He said India’s engagement with China since 2020 was focused on ending the border stalemate. The engagement took place at various levels, involving different arms of the government.
Since June 2020, 17 meetings of the Working Mechanism for Cooperation and Coordination (WMCC) at the diplomatic level and 21 meetings of Senior Highest Military Commanders took place, he said, adding, ”in this background, I would like to inform the House today about the agreement reached on 21 October, 2024 regarding Depsang and Demchok. The twin considerations of an unstable local situation and an impacted bilateral relationship were clearly the drivers for these recent endeavours.”
He said India was and remains very clear that the three key principles must be observed in all circumstances: (i) both sides should strictly respect and observe the LAC, (ii) neither side should attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo, and (iii) agreements and understandings reached in the past must be fully abided by in their entirety.
Dr Jaishankar said the conclusion of the disengagement phase on LAC now allows India to consider other aspects of the bilateral engagement in a calibrated manner, keeping national security interests first and foremost.
He said that in his recent meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, it was decided that Special Representatives on the border issue and the foreign secretary-level mechanisms between the two countries will be convening soon.
He said India has made it clear to China that it would not countenance any attempts to change the status quo on the border unilaterally. ”We also expected that all agreements and protocols pertaining to the management of the border areas would be scrupulously followed,” he added.
Dr Jaishankar said that following the 21 October understanding, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan. The two leaders welcomed the understanding and directed the foreign ministers to meet and stabilise and rebuild the relationship.