Peace in border must for normalcy in ties, Jaishankar to tell China

When he will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow this week, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is likely to drive home the point that peace and tranquillity along the disputed boundary between India and China was a prerequisite for development of bilateral relations.

Jaishankar’s talks with Wang on the side-line of a conclave of the Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Moscow is going to be the second high-level meeting between India and China after the two neighbouring nations got engaged in a military stand-off in early May. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had a meeting with his counterpart in the communist country, Wei Fenghe, last Friday.

The External Affairs Minister is expected to underline during his talks with the Chinese Foreign Minister that the relation between India and China could be brought back to the track only when the status quo ante would be restored along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a source aware of New Delhi’s approach on its engagement with Beijing told the DH.

The stand-off in eastern Ladakh started in early May after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sought to unilaterally change the status quo on several points along the LAC – the de facto border between the two nations – and the Indian Army responded by deploying additional troops. The stand-off brought the relations between India and China to a new low after both sides suffered casualties during a violent face-off in GMoscowalwan Valley on June 15.

Jaishankar is likely to drive home the point during his talks with Wang that the agreements the two nations put in place to ensure peace and tranquillity along the disputed boundary between the two nations had also helped develop bilateral relations over the past three decades. He is expected to convey to the Chinese Foreign Minister that it was important to scrupulously adhere to the agreements to maintain peace in the border region, till the two sides could settle the boundary dispute.

The source also said that New Delhi would remain firm on its position that the business could not be as usual with Beijing, unless and until the Chinese PLA pulled back troops from the face-off points along the LAC.

The two sides in early July mutually agreed on phased withdrawal of the front-line troops from the face-off scenes along the LAC. The process of “disengagement”, however, remained stalled since mid-July, as the Chinese PLA declined to withdraw troops completely from several face-off points along the LAC, including Depsang Y junction, Gogra Post and the northern bank of the Pangong Tso.