(TibetanReview.net, Apr12’24) — In what is seen as a softening of India’s tone or stand on its currently defiant posture on the tense Tibet-border situation with China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the two sides should “urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us”.
“I hope and believe that through positive and constructive bilateral engagement at the diplomatic and military levels, we will be able to restore and sustain peace and tranquillity in our borders,” Modi has added in an interview published Apr 10 by the US magazine Newsweek.
He has further said: “Stable and peaceful relations between India and China are important for not just our two countries but the entire region and world.”
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Modi’s comments about tensions at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are “highly significant”, thehindu.com Apr 11 cited Indian foreign affairs experts as saying.
Pankaj Saran, who was the Deputy National Security Advisor between 2018 and 2021, and is now the convenor of a think tank named NatStrat, has called Modi’s comments “highly significant”.
“This is an important signal, to China, the US and to the world at large,” he has said, indicating that Modi may have been laying the ground to address issues with China as a priority in his third term, if he is re-elected in the upcoming general election.
He has also pointed to the changes in China’s ties with other global players, including renewed talks with the US and Europe, and closer engagement with Russia, as pertinent. Senior US officials have visited Beijing recently, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit France next month, during his first trip to Europe since 2019.
Modi’s comments might denote “a signal to China that there is a readiness to re-engage and restore relations,” former Foreign Secretary and National Security Advisory Board chairperson Shyam Saran, who is now president of the India International Centre, has said.
However, in a note of caution, India’s former Ambassador to China Ashok Kantha has said it was also important that the Prime Minister had stressed India’s stand that normalcy in the relationship would be contingent on restoration of the situation at the border.
“This is a reiteration of the position the government has taken since the summer of 2020, even though the Prime Minister refers to the significance of India-China relations. Indeed, despite a serious downturn in bilateral engagement, India has never questioned the importance of this consequential relationship,” Mr Kantha has said.
Still, the report cited other diplomats as saying Modi’s comments denoted a “softening of stance”, including his comments on the Quad, where he likened the Quad to other groupings that India is a part of.
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China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has also reacted to Modi’s remarks on Apr 11.
“We believe that sound and stable China, India relations serve the common interests of both sides and are conducive to peace and development of the region and beyond,” the PTI news agency Apr 11 quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning as saying at a media briefing in Beijing.
Mao has further reiterated that the boundary question “does not represent the entirety of the India-China relations. It should be placed appropriately in the bilateral relations and managed properly”.
“We hope India will work in the same direction with China, handle the bilateral relations from the strategic heights and long-term perspective, enhance mutual trust, stick to dialogue and cooperation, handle differences properly and put the bilateral relations forward on sound and stable track,” she has added.
She has also said the two countries had maintained close communication through diplomatic and military channels and positive progress had been made.
Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a rare face-to-face meeting last August on the sidelines of a Brics summit in Johannesburg, where they agreed to “intensify efforts” to de-escalate tensions at their contested Tibet-border.