(TibetanReview.net, Sep13’24) – India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said Sep 12 that roughly 75% of the “disengagement problems” with China in the eastern Ladakh border area with Chinese-ruled Tibet had been sorted out, citing this as a progress. However, he has added that the bigger issue remained the increasing militarization of the frontier and the complex relationship between the two sides on a host of other issues as well.
India’s relations with China cannot become normal until peace and tranquillity is restored on the border between the two countries, thestatesman.com Sep 12 cited him as reiterating.
The minister has said the two countries had negotiated for the last four years in the aftermath of the Jun 2020 clashes in the Galwan Valley that killed 20 Indian troops.
That year, Jaishankar has said, China moved a large number of troops to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) “in violation of multiple agreements for some reason, which is not entirely clear to us”.
So, “the first step to that (solving the border stand-off) is disengagement… We have made some progress. You can say roughly 75% of the disengagement problems have been sorted out,” he has said.
He has said the border confrontation had affected the entirety of the bilateral relationship.
“Because, you cannot have violence at the border and say the rest of the relationship is insulated from it. Trade has got affected. The exchanges have gotten affected. It is not normal,” theprint.in Sep 12 quoted him as saying, speaking with Jean David-Levitte, the former French permanent representative to the United Nations at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), a think-tank.
Jaishankar was visiting Switzerland from Sep 12 to 13, following a two-day stop in Germany.
India took a series of measures after the Galwan Valley clash. It banned a large of Chinese apps in a series of announcements, including the highly popular and profitable short video app TikTok. It also tightened restrictions on Chinese investments in India.
Besides, India is yet to lift the Covid-era restrictions of direct flights to China, while the number of visas issued to Chinese citizens has fallen to 5,500 in 2023 from nearly 2,00,000 in 2018, the report noted.
The minister has also called trade ties between India and China “very unfair,” saying the imbalance was extremely high. In 2023-2024, India imported $101.74 billion worth of goods from China, while exporting only about $16.66 billion — nearly a $85 billion deficit.
“We do not have the market access there. They have much better market access in India. We have concerns in various areas — in technology, telecommunications, digital. We also monitor what happens in the Indian Ocean,” Jaishankar has added.
He has said any “radical change” of presence in the Indian Ocean would require India to scrutinize it under its “security calculus”.
The external affairs minister indicated that the relationship could improve if there is a resolution to the border row. “We hope that if there is a solution to the disengagement and there is a return to peace and tranquillity, then we can look at other possibilities,” firstpost.com Sep 12 quoted him as saying.