Can't Have Tense, High-Friction Border & Great Relations In Other Parts Of Life: External Affairs Minister
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said India and China cannot have a “tense, high friction” border and simultaneously maintain good relations in other areas.
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Thursday said “the state of the relationship between India and China will reflect the state of the border,” regarding the standoff in eastern Ladakh.
Jaishankar was speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit where he said that India and China cannot have a “tense, high friction” border and simultaneously maintain good relations in other areas.
He said that it was not a realistic expectation to carry with the relationship when the situation at the border was tense. He asserted that questions like why it happened and what it reflects were completely legitimate.
"And as we have made clear -- the state of the relationship, at the end of the day, will reflect the state of the border. You can't have a tense, high-friction border and have great relations in all other parts of life. It does not work that way," he said.
"It is inevitable that this will sort of spillover, it has already spilled over into other domains, and the expectation that somehow we will contain it in a narrow sense and carry on with the rest of life, I think, is not a realistic one,” he added.
"We do have a significant issue there for us and also for them because I frankly don't think it is in the interest of either country that our relationship goes off in this direction," further said the Minister.
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Jaishankar said that by bringing Chinese forces to the border which sparked the row, the Chinese government had violated commitments.
"In terms of bringing forces to the border, it is not an impression that we had or we thought we had an understanding. We had it in cold print in two agreements. So there is no ambiguity on that score," EAM said.
"There were very, very clear-cut commitments not to mass forces on the border and those commitments stand violated as of 2020 spring," he added.
The external minister said that the “sight of woods should not be lost for trees.” Adding to the remark, Jaishankar said, "I think the trees are individual incidents or attempts to unilaterally change the status quo or to violate the LAC (Line of Actual Control)."
He said that as the troops on both sides of the border are deployed “sometimes uncomfortably closely” discussions were going on between India and China to resolve the issue.
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