‘NO REASON WHY WE CAN’T HANDLE BORDER DISPUTE’
SINGAPORE : India and China have handled border issues in the past and there is no reason the two countries will not be able to handle them this time, foreign secretary S Jaishankar said on Tuesday. “It is a long border, as you know no part of the border has been agreed upon on the ground. It is likely that from time to time there are differences,” said Jaishankar during a lecture on ‘India-ASEAN and the Changing Geopolitics’.
› The IndiaChina relationship by now has acquired so many dimensions and so much substance that reducing it to black and white argumentation cannot be a serious proposition. S JAISHANKAR, foreign secretary
NEW DELHI: There is no reason why India and China cannot address the border issue this time as they have sorted out similar differences in the past, foreign secretary S Jaishankar said on Tuesday amid the standoff in Sikkim.
Recalling that this was not the first time that China and India are locked in a tussle over the border, Jaishankar said, “When such situations arise, I see no reason — when having handled so many situations in the past — we would not be able to handle it.”
He was responding to questions after delivering a lecture on India-ASEAN and the Changing Geopolitics in Singapore.
China and India have been engaged in a standoff in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan tri-junction for over three weeks. India fears that the Chinese Army’s move to construct a road in the area would change the status quo of the tri-junction.
Of the 3,488-km-long IndiaChina border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in Sikkim.
The foreign secretary said the evolving India-China relationship will have a direct implication for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), grouping of 10 countries.
“..In this changing landscape, few would dispute that the evolving India-China relationship has a direct implication for ASEAN, for the larger Asia Pacific, and perhaps even globally,” he said.
“We are all aware by now of the complexity inherent in the rise of two major powers near simultaneously, that too in close proximity. That the powers in question are civilisational ones, with positive far history and difficult near history, adds to the challenge,” Jaishankar said.
He added that the big debate was about the “opportunities and risks that emanate from this twin rise”.
“Skewing the analysis in the direction of one at the expense of the other could mislead us,” the diplomat warned.
He said “the India-China relationship by now has acquired so many dimensions and so much substance that reducing it to black and white argumentation cannot be a serious proposition”.