State of relationship will reflect state of border: EAM on ties with China

the relationship between India and China will reflect the state of the border, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday, referring to the lingering standoff in eastern Ladakh.

In an interactive session at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, he said the two countries cannot have a "tense, high-friction border" and have great relations in other areas.

Jaishankar said it is not a realistic expectation to carry on with the relationship when there is a tense border and asserted that questions like why it happened and what does it reflect are completely legitimate.

"And as we have made clear -- the state of the relationship, at the end of the day, will reflect the state of the border. You can't have a tense, high-friction border and have great relations in all other parts of life. It does not work that way," he said.

"It is inevitable that this will sort of spill over, it has already spilt over into other domains and the expectation that somehow we will contain it in a narrow sense and carry on with the rest of life, I think, is not a realistic one," the external affairs minister said.