New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar emphasized that while India and China may have competing interests, it does not imply there must be a conflict. His remarks followed the latest round of discussions in Beijing, held under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC).
“Differences should not become disputes and competition should not become conflict. We do compete on many issues, but because we compete doesn’t mean that there should be a conflict between us…,” he said in conversation with the president and chief executive officer of the Asia Society, Dr Kyung-wha Kang.
He described the violent clash in eastern Ladakh in 2020 as "very traumatic" for India-China relations. “Between India and China, there will be issues in the foreseeable future but there are ways of addressing those. What happened in 2020 was not the way to address those issues,” Jaishankar said.
“From October of last year, the relationship has seen some improvement. We are working on different aspects of it...What we are trying is to see if we can undo some of the damage which happened as a result of the actions in 2020, and we can rebuild the relationship. We genuinely think that this is in our mutual interest, if one looks at 2020-2025, it was a period which did not serve them well, and it did not serve us well,” he added.
Progress made to resume Kailash Yatra: MEAIndia and China have made further progress on the modalities to resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra in 2025, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said following the official consultation between the Foreign Ministries of India and China, held in Beijing this week. Gourangalal Das, Joint Secretary (East Asia) at the MEA held a consultative meeting with Liu Jinsong, Director General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during which the two sides reviewed the action taken by them to implement the strategic direction as also the specific steps agreed in the meeting between Foreign Secretary and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister in January 2025 to stabilize and rebuild ties. "They agreed to continue efforts to further facilitate and promote people-to-people exchanges, including arrangements for resumption of direct flights, interaction of media and think-tanks, and celebration of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. The two sides have made further progress on the modalities to resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra in 2025," the MEA said. |
