"State of the border determines relationship with China": S Jaishankar

Munich: The current relationship between India and China was on rocky ground and China had violated agreements made on the Line of Actual Control which had led to the situation at present, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday. 

His remarks follow months of increasing border tensions on either side, after the eastern Ladakh border standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries erupted following a violent clash in the Pangong lake areas and both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry.

Addressing the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2022 Panel Discussion, Jaishankar outlined the cause for the hostility.

"...The problem is that for 45 years there was peace, there was stable border management, there were no military casualties on the border from 1975," he was quoted as saying by PTI. 

"That changed because we had agreements with China not to bring military forces to the… we call it the border but it's Line of Actual Control, and the Chinese violated those agreements," Jaishankar went on to say, adding that "the state of the border will determine the state of the relationship, that's natural."

"So obviously relations with China right now are going through a very difficult phase," the external affairs minister said, adding that India's relations with the West were quite decent even before June 2020.

Jaishankar, who was in Melbourne last week, had said that the situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has arisen due to the disregard of written agreements by China not to mass soldiers at the border and noted that Beijing's actions have become an issue of "legitimate concern" for the entire international community.

The situation at the LAC has arisen due to the disregard by China in 2020 of written agreements with India not to mass forces at the border, he said.

Jaishankar participated in the panel discussion on the Indo-Pacific at the MSC which is aimed at extensively deliberating on the escalating tension between the NATO countries and Russia over Ukraine. He also talked about the Quad summit between US, India Japan and Australia, calling it an example of four countries who could make the world better by cooperating.