News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 3rd December 2024
India-China relations, which have been “abnormal” since April 2020, when the two militaries clashed in parts of eastern Ladakh, resulting in fatalities on both sides for the first time in 45 years, have recently improved, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Lok Sabha Tuesday, explaining that “continuous diplomatic engagement since then (has) set our ties in the direction of some improvement”. Mr Jaishankar stated that India was committed to engage with China “through bilateral talks to arrive at a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable settlement for the border issue”.
However, given our previous experiences, it is clear that border control would require further attention, he told Parliament. He identified three key principles that should be followed in all instances. The first requirement is that both sides strictly respect and adhere to the LAC. The second is that neither should attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo, and the third is that previous agreements and understandings must be fully complied with.
“Members will recall the amassing of a large number of troops by China along the LAC (Line of Actual Control) in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020 resulted in face-offs with our forces at a number of points. The situation also led to disruption of patrolling activities,” the EAM began his remarks.
“It is to the credit of our armed forces that despite logistical challenges, and the then prevailing Covid situation, they were able to counter-deploy rapidly and effectively,” he said.
“While a determined counter-deployment of adequate capability was the immediate response, there was also the imperative of a diplomatic effort to defuse tensions and restore peace and tranquility.”
That diplomatic effort, which included nearly two dozen rounds of negotiations between military leaders, the most recent on August 29, resulted in the October accord, under which Indian and Chinese forces returned to their locations and began patrolling routes prior to the April 2020 conflict.Last Thursday, the government said that the transaction had been carried out as promised.The agreement, announced hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia for a BRICS Summit, which would also include China’s Xi Jinping, was viewed as a road map to restoring peace and tranquillity along the LAC, a status quo that the Indian government has frequently cited as the first, and necessary, step toward normalising relations between the two countries.
Mr Jaishankar stated that the immediate priority of disengaging soldiers from friction locations in eastern Ladakh, notably in the Depsang and Demchok districts, had been “fully achieved”. The External Affairs Minister stated that the next priority is to examine de-escalation, which will handle troop amassing near the Line of Actual Control, which serves as the de facto international border. Mr Jaishankar’s statements come two weeks after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with his Chinese colleague, Dong Jun, for the first ministerial-level meeting since the disengagement in eastern Ladakh.
Mr Singh and Mr Dong, a former naval Commander appointed in December last year, met on the sidelines of a two-day, 10-nation ASEAN summit in Laos that began November 20.
Disengagement and patrolling in Depsang and Demchok follows similar positive actions on the north and south banks of the Pangong Lake in 2021, and in the contentious Gogra-Hot Springs area in September a year later. In each case the two sides withdrew to pre-April 2020 positions.
