'India strives for a relationship with China but...': Jaishankar

Washington, Sept 29: With China asserting that situations at the border are stable while India stating the opposite to it, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday that India will continue to maintain a relationship with China but one that is based on "mutual" sensitivity, respect, and interest.

 

This came after China's Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong had said, "The phase of emergency response since the Galwan Valley incident has basically come to an end, and the border situation is now switching to normalized management and control."

  

 

Responding to a question on the consistent comments from Beijing about how things are "okay" between the two countries, Jaishankar said, "What I have said, to my mind represents accurate policy assessment of where the state of our relations is. We continue to strive for a relationship with China, but one that is built on mutual sensitivity, mutual respect and mutual interest."

 

 

Minister Jaishankar who is in the US to attend the recently concluded annual UN General Assembly, is now in Washington where he met his US counterpart, Antony Blinken and other top officials of the Biden Administration.

 

Meanwhile, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong stated that the situation on the India-China border is "overall stable" and the two sides have moved from the "emergency response" that followed the clash in Galwan Valley in June 2020 to "normalised management and control".

 

"I think if the spokesperson of a foreign ministry were to say something, I would urge you to see a comment from the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of the corresponding country," Jaishankar responded when asked for his reaction to Weidong's comment.

 

 

Jaishankars comments clearly go against the Chinese position that the overall India-China relationship is normal. He has already slammed China at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session on Ukraine. In a reference to Beijing's decision to block the listing of terrorists, Jaishankar said, "The fight against impunity is critical to the larger pursuit of securing peace and justice. The Security Council must send an unambiguous and unequivocal message on this count. Politics should never ever provide cover to evade accountability. Nor indeed to facilitate impunity."

 

Further, he said, "Regrettably, we have seen this of late in this very chamber, when it comes to sanctioning some of the world's most dreaded terrorists. If egregious attacks committed in broad daylight are left unpunished, this Council must reflect on the signals we are sending with impunity. There must be consistency if we are to ensure credibility."

 

 

India and China have withdrawn frontline troops from the two banks of Pangong Lake, Gogra and Hot Springs after more than two dozen rounds of diplomatic and military talks. However, there has been no forward movement on other friction points such as Demchok and Depsang.

 

Following the eastern Ladakh standoff, India has been consistently maintaining that peace along the Line of Actual Control was key for the overall development of the ties and that the state of the border will determine the state of the relationship.