Jaishankar: India’s relations with China going through ‘a very difficult phase’

Munich/New Delhi, Feb 19 (UNI) India’s relations with China are right now going through a “very difficult phase”, and the state of the border will determine the state of the relations with Beijing, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said today. Answering questions on India’s border problem with China at a panel discussion at the Munich Security Council, the EAM said:” It’s a problem we’re having with China. And the problem is this — that for 45 years there was peace; there was stable border management there were no military casualties on the border from 1975. “That changed because we had agreements with China not to bring military forces to the Line of Actual Control, and the Chinese violated those agreements. “The state of the border will determine the state of the relationship, that’s natural,” he said. “So, obviously relations with China are right now going through a very difficult phase,” he added, but disagreed with the person hosting the discussion that India is veering towards the West due to worsening ties with China. “Our relations with the West were quite decent before June 2020 (Before the Galwan incident),“ he said, adding that India’s relations with the Quad partners of US, Australia, and Japan improved in the last 20 years. “The Quad has a value in itself; it’s four countries who recognize that the world would be a better place if they cooperated, and that’s what’s happening.” To a question, citing a poll that apparently showed that India’s relations with the Asean countries have seen a slight downswing since the Modi government started the Act East Policy, the EAM disagreed. “I’m a politician, so I believe in polls, but I’ve never seen a poll which made any sense when it which made any sense when it comes to foreign policy,” he asserted. He said India’s relations with the Asean nations are “growing well”, and cited two “big changes” that are taking place – stronger security cooperation and greater connectivity. “We have much stronger security cooperation,” he said, adding that he has just returned from the Philippines with which India has recently signed an agreement for military supplies. He added that India is also part of the Asean Defence Ministers Meeting plus grouping, and that India also has strong bilateral relations with Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam as well as the other nations. “And the other is physical connectivity… I don’t think that poll is very good,” he quipped. His comments come exactly a week after he said at a press conference in Melbourne, post a Quad foreign ministers meeting, that the tensions with China have arisen because Beijing chose to mass troops on the border in complete “disregard of written commitments”. “Because the situation has arisen because of the disregard by China in 2020 of written agreements with us, not to mass forces at the border. “So, when a large country disregards written commitments, I think it is an issue of legitimate concern for the entire international community.”