New Delhi (Sputnik): India's Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the country's relations with China and Pakistan were very different and India deals with Beijing on a whole range of issues. In July this year, a top Indian Army official confirmed that the two Asian rivals have been moving in the right direction on vexed border issues.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said that despite complex border and trade issues there is an understanding between the Asian powers.
Jaishankar said India’s relations with China and Pakistan were very different and India deals with Beijing on a whole range of issues. Jaishankar was a career diplomat before joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet and served as India’s envoy to China from 2009 to 2013.
“With China, it’s a complex relationship but I will argue in many ways it is a relationship with a great future. China is today is among our top two trading partners. We deal with China on whole range of issues", Jaishankar said at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Tuesday night. He is in Russia to co-chair the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission - Technical and Economic Cooperation.
The two countries have admitted in the recent past, especially after the Wuhan Informal Summit 2018 that they are moving ahead on some of the very complex issues including border.
"We discuss everything under the sun with China, we have an annual informal summit at the leadership level. There is understanding, certainly on our part that India and China have to get along to realise the Asian century", Jaishankar added.
During Modi’s visit to Wuhan in April 2018 for an informal summit with President Xi, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou had said “the issues between China and India are limited, temporary in nature, but the relationship is extensive and ongoing”.
India and China have a prolonged dispute over the Himalayan border, but both countries set up a mechanism to discuss the border issues in 2005. The sides have even held 21 rounds of talks to find an amicable solution to the border dispute, though a final resolution has yet to be found.
In July of this year, designated vice chief of the Indian Army Lt. Gen. M M Naravane indicated that both countries with a loosely demarcated border, measuring around 4,057 km, have been moving in the right direction to sign an agreement on border issues.
Modi will be hosting Xi Jinping later this year for an informal summit in Varanasi, his parliamentary constituency. Modi wants to reciprocate Chinese president, who hosted him for the BRICS Summit in Xiamen, from where Xi became an officer holder from the Communist Party of China to become the president of the country.
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