S Jaishankar: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that Beijing violated India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty since 1963. He made these remarks while speaking at a lecture in Kolkata on Friday.
India and China have had strained ties since the 2020 Galwan clashes.
While speaking at the Syama Prasad Mukherjee Lecture: New India and the World, the minister said India is not responsible for the strained relationship with China.
The downturn in Sino-Indian ties started happening due to Beijing’s violations of the bilateral agreements in 1993 and 1996. These violations included moving the Chinese forces to the Line of Actual Control.
The LAC or Line of Actual Control is not a border but a series of outposts that separate China-occupied Ladakh from India. China occupied parts of Ladakh in 1962. India has never accepted this occupation.
The minister stressed that both countries must work together for a sustainable diplomatic relationship. However, China must stop trying to change the status quo unilaterally, Mr. Jaishankar said.
News agency ANI quoted the minister as saying, “Now, if we are to have a decent relationship, I think…they need to observe those agreements, they need to stop trying to unilaterally change the status quo. They need to come to the understanding that relationships between major countries work only when they are based on mutual interest, mutual sensitivity, and mutual respect. They need to understand this. And my endeavour is to make them understand this.”
“Violation of India’s territorial integrity”
Mr Jaishankar told the assembled audience that China has violated India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity several times.
“What has hurt our interest more is the actual violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity… and that violation was by China. As I noted, this began in 1963 and kept increasing thereafter through connectivity initiatives,” the minister said.
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