Jaishankar on India-China Ties: Competing Interests Shouldn’t Lead to Conflict:

S. Jaishankar, Minister for External Affairs, remarked that India and China can have competing interests, but that does not mean that there needs to be a conflict.

His comments came after the newest round of talks that were conducted in Beijing as a part of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) framework.

“Differences should not lead to disputes, and competition should not lead to conflict. Yes, there are many issues that we do compete on, but that does not mean there has to be conflict between us…” he noted during a discussion with the president and CEO of the Asia Society, Dr. Kyung-wha Kang.

The EAM termed the 2020 violent clash at eastern Ladakh as “very traumatic” for the India China relationship. “We had a war with China in 1962. It took us 14 years after that to send back an Ambassador. It took us 12 more years for the Prime Minister of India to visit that country... From 1988 till 2020, while we had incidents in the border areas, we had not actually had bloodshed. The last bloodshed was 45 years before 2020. What happened in 2020 was actually very traumatic for the relationship. It wasn’t just the bloodshed, it was the absolute violation of written agreements,” he continued.

The EAM remarked that there seems to be an improvement in the relations between the two countries India and China since October of the previous year.

"There will be issues Order between India and China certainly for the foresee able future, but there are ways of solving those. What took place in 2020 is not the method of resolving such problems," he said.

“Since October of last year, the relationship has seen improvements. We are doing different things in regard to ...Let us try and see whether we can undo some Earned actions in 2020 and see whether relationships can be rebuilt, We believe that is achievable. If one looks at the years 2020 to 2025, it was a negative period for them and us,” he explained.