China reneged on border agreements with India: Jaishankar

Beijing had violated agreements it had with New Delhi about how to keep the border between the two countries tranquil, says External Affairs Minister

Tensions between India and China would continue as long as there was the forward deployment of troops, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said. India is currently preparing to continue with the forward deployment of its soldiers for the fifth winter.

The overall relationship with China had “not been great” over the last few years because China had reneged on certain agreements it had with India about how to keep the border between the two countries tranquil, Mr. Jaishankar said during a discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) in Washington on Tuesday (October 1, 2024).

“Those agreements were violated by China in 2020,” the Minister said, referring to clashes between Chinese and Indian soldiers in that year on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).  Twenty Indian soldiers had died, as per official counts. Both countries had moved thousands of troops to the LAC after the clash.

“…We have forward deployments of our militaries. There are resulting tensions. And until those forward deployments are addressed, the tensions will continue. If the tensions continue, it casts a natural shadow over the rest of the relationship,” the Minister said.

Asked about the high volumes of trade between the two countries, the Minister said that any kind of consumption or manufacturing has to inevitably source from China. So trade with China is almost autonomous.

U.S. comments on Indian democracy is a ‘testy’ issue

The U.S. commenting on the state of India’s democracy is a “testy” issue, Mr. Jaishankar said. There is competition among countries and political forces, he said, adding that in this competitive environment “you expect countries to do as they will”.

The government has previously attributed the U.S. government airing its concerns about democratic norms and human rights in India to American “vote bank politics”.

“We think it’s important that democracies are mutually respectful,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

“It cannot be that one democracy has a right to comment on another, and that’s about promoting democracy globally, but when others do that, then it becomes foreign interference,” he said.

“Foreign interference is foreign interference, irrespective of who does it and where it is. So it’s a testy area,” the Minister said.

‘India has never targeted the dollar’

Mr Jaishankar denied that India was interested in the de-dollarisation of the world economy and seeking alternative currencies as a reserve mechanism.

“I think you have us confused for someone else, “ he said, to CEIP director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar with whom he was in discussion on Tuesday morning.  

 “We have never targeted the dollar,” Mr. Jaishankar said, adding that this was not part of India’s economic or political thought. However, he said India had trade partners who do not have U.S. dollars and India had to consider either forgoing dealings with them or find alternative settlement mechanisms.

Mr. Jaishankar suggested that these were natural outcomes of multi-alignment and global rebalancing.

“There’s no malicious intent vis-à-vis the dollar… we are trying to do our business,” he said, adding the U.S. sometimes made it difficult because of its policies, necessitating these workarounds.

With bilateral trade worth $65 billion, India and Russia have reportedly witnessed increasing levels of rupee-rouble payments to settle their balances and work around U.S. and G7 sanctions that had impacted business with Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. India and Iran had previously settled payments in rupees and Iranian rials, but the system had shut down for all practical purposes following India stopping import of Iranian oil owing to U.S. sanctions.

Published - October 02, 2024 01:05 am IST