India-China Relations ‘Profoundly Disturbed’: S Jaishankar

The recent stand-off is a sharp departure from diplomatic efforts in the past two years.

Image of EAM S Jaishankar and India-China flags used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint / Arnica Kala)

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, 16 October, the violent stand-along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, has left the relationship between the two countries "profoundly disturbed".

Speaking at a virtual event hosted by the Asia Society, Jaishankar said that India has built the relationship with China over the course of last 30 years "and a basis for building that relationship has been peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control," reported the Press Trust of India.

He said there are multiple agreements, starting from 1993, which created the framework for that peace and tranquillity. The framework limited the military forces that came to the border areas, directed how to manage the border and how border troops behave when they approach each other.

"So, from the conceptual level down to the behavioural level, there was an entire sort of framework out there. Now, what we saw this year was a departure from this entire series of agreements. The massing of a large amount of Chinese forces on the border was clearly contrary to all of this. And when you had friction point which was a large number of troops at different points very close to each other, then something tragic like what happened on 15th of June happened," he said.

“To underline the enormity of that, it was the first military casualty we had after 1975. So what it has done is, it has obviously had a very deep public impact, very major political impact and it has left the relationship profoundly disturbed,” the minister added.

He said that India and China Wuhan Summit in April 2018 and summit in Chennai last year were to bring the two countries together. "What happened this year, of course, was a very sharp departure. Now it’s not just a sharp departure from the conversation, it's a sharp departure over a course of relationship over 30 years," he said.

In response to a question on what the Chinese actually did on the border and why they did it, S Jaishankar said: "I haven’t frankly got any reasonable explanation that I can tell myself from them on this matter. There are today a very large number of troops with weapons concentrated on that segment of the border and that is obviously a very critical security challenge that we face."

(With inputs from PTI)