Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

India and China should handle the bilateral ties from a “strategic height and long-term perspective” while implementing the common understanding reached by the leaders of the two countries, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday (January 21, 2025).

The Ministry was reacting to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s recent remarks that the India-China relationship is trying to disentangle itself from the complications arising from the post-2020 border situation and more thought needs to be given to the longer-term evolution of the ties.

“We need to view and handle the bilateral relations from a strategic height and long-term perspective, bring the relations back to the track of healthy and stable development, and find the right path for big, neighbouring countries to live in harmony and develop side by side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a media briefing in Beijing.

Also read | India, China have set ties on right track: Jaishankar

Delving into various aspects of New Delhi’s relations with Beijing over past decades, Mr. Jaishankar in his Nani Palkhivala memorial lecture in Mumbai on January 18 said, “misreadings” by past policymakers, whether driven by “idealism or absence of realpolitik”, has helped neither cooperation nor competition with China.

That has changed in the last decade, he said, adding that mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of the relationship between the two sides. He said that more thought needs to be given to the longer-term evolution of ties.

Responding to a question on Mr. Jaishankar’s remarks, Mr. Guo said that as two major time-honoured civilizations, developing countries and emerging economies, China and India need to focus on development and engage in cooperation.

Also read | A slow return: On border tensions and India-China ties 

This serves the fundamental interests of over 2.8 billion people of the two countries, meets the common aspiration of regional countries and peoples, goes along with the historical trend of the Global South growing stronger, and is conducive to peace and prosperity of the region and the wider world, he said.

“The two sides need to earnestly deliver on the important common understandings reached between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their meeting in Kazan, including that China and India are each other’s development opportunities rather than threats, and cooperation partners rather than competitors. In global affairs, the two sides need to remain committed to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, practice true multilateralism, advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and make a greater contribution to world peace, stability, development and prosperity,” he said.

China and India reach consensus on troop disengagement in Ladakh, maintaining dialogue for resolution, respecting bilateral agreements for peace. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

China and India were able to “reduce differences” and build “some consensus” on disengaging troops from friction points to end the standoff in eastern Ladakh and agreed to maintain dialogue to reach a resolution acceptable to both sides at an “early date”, the Chinese Defence Ministry said on Thursday (September 26, 2024).

Under the guidance of two leaders, China and India have maintained communication with each other through diplomatic and military channels, including between two foreign Ministers and China’s Foreign Minister and India’s National Security Advisor, and through the border consultation mechanisms, Mr. Zhang Xiaogang said.

Both China and India, through talks, were “able to reduce their differences and build some consensus besides agreeing to strengthen dialogue to accommodate each other’s legitimate concerns”, Mr. Zhang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defence, told a media briefing in Beijing.

“The two sides agreed to reach a resolution at an early date acceptable to both sides,” he said.

He was replying to a question on the talks between the two countries on disengagement from the remaining friction points especially Demchok and Depsang to end the over four-year-long military standoff in eastern Ladakh resulting in a freeze of relations between the two countries.

Mr. Zhang referred to the meeting between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as well as the recent meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in Russia between Wang and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

On September 3, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, while commenting on the talks between Wang and Doval, said the “front-line armies of the two countries have realised disengagement in four areas in the Western sector of the China-India border, including the Galwan Valley”.

In his reply to the question, Mr. Zhang didn’t comment on the progress of the disengagement from the remaining areas including Depsang and Demchok but said both sides will continue to consolidate the outcomes.

“We will continue to consolidate the outcomes we have reached and respect bilateral agreements and confidence-building measures to safeguard peace and tranquillity at the border,” he said.

His comment respecting bilateral agreements came as Jaishankar, while addressing an event hosted by the Asia Society and the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York on Tuesday (September 24, 2024), said there were a series of agreements between the two countries that went into greater and greater detail on how to make sure the border remained peaceful and stable.

“Now the problem was in 2020, despite these very explicit agreements, we saw that the Chinese – we were all in the middle of Covid at that time – moved a large number of forces in violation of these agreements to the Line of Actual Control. And we responded in kind,” he said.

Meanwhile, Li Jinsong, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, met with Indian Ambassador to China Pradeep Kumar Rawat here, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, without providing any details.