- Saturday, April 27, 2024
The diplomat was speaking on India-China ties while interacting with the Indian diaspora in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Wednesday (27) emphasized that achieving normalcy in bilateral relations with China hinges upon the traditional deployment of troops, which serves as a prerequisite for advancing the relationship with Beijing.
“My first duty to Indians is to secure the border. I can never compromise on that,” the diplomat said while responding to a question on the current state of India’s relations with the northern neighbour during his interaction with the Indian diaspora in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
Jaishankar is on a three-nation visit including Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia since March 23 which concluded on Wednesday.
Read: Indian diaspora in Malaysia praise Modi’s ‘progressive’ leadership
Met with Tan Sri @TSVigneswaranSA , President of @MIC_Malaysia and its members.
Thanked them for their continued support towards nurturing closer India-Malaysia ties. pic.twitter.com/tfGHQzea0s— Dr. S. Jaishankar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@DrSJaishankar) March 27, 2024
He said every country wants “good relations with its neighbours. Who doesn’t? But every relationship has to be founded on some basis”.
Read: After Thailand & Sri Lanka, Malaysia too grants visa-free entry for Indians
“We’re still negotiating with the Chinese. I talk to my counterpart. We meet from time to time. Our military commanders negotiate with each other. But we are very clear that we had an agreement. There is a Line of Actual Control. We have a tradition of not bringing troops to that line. Both of us have bases some distance away, which is our traditional deployment place. And we want that normalcy,” he said.
A productive round-table meeting with CEOs in Malaysia.
Glad to hear about growing interest in partnering with Indian industries. Encouraged them to join in India’s growth story.Discussed geopolitical developments that can provide more opportunities in 🇮🇳 🇲🇾 business… pic.twitter.com/Qt76qXmI41
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@DrSJaishankar) March 27, 2024
“So that normalcy that returns to where we are in terms of the troop deployment will be the basis for the relationship going forward. And we’ve been very, very honest with the Chinese about it,” Jaishankar said.
The Indian external affairs minister also said that in the case of China, the relationship has been difficult for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the two sides have a boundary dispute.
“But despite the boundary dispute over the many years, we actually built up a substantial relationship because we agreed that while we will negotiate the boundary dispute, both of us will agree that we will not bring soldiers in large numbers to the boundary. And we will never have a situation where there’ll be violence and bloodshed on the contrary,” he said.
So this understanding which started in the late 1980s, actually was reflected in several agreements. And those agreements gave the relationship stability based on which in other areas, the relationship went forward, Jaishankar added.
“Now, unfortunately, for reasons which are still not clear to us, these agreements were broken in 2020. And we actually had violence and bloodshed on the border,” Jaishankar said.
Ties between India and China nose-dived significantly following the deadly clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in more than four decades.
(With PTI inputs)
