Despite the patrolling agreement with China, which was announced earlier this week, it will take time to rebuild trust and for the two countries to be willing to work with each other, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said.

During an interaction with students from a university in Pune on Saturday, Mr Jaishankar said the breakthrough with China was possible because the military enabled India to stand its ground and make its point and diplomacy also did its part. A focus on infrastructure in border areas, which enabled effective deployment of the military, also played a key role.

Responding to a question on the patrolling and disengagement agreement in the Depsang and Demchok areas in Eastern Ladakh and what can be expected from the future of India-China relations, the minister said, “From 2020, the situation at the border has been very disturbed and that has, understandably, had a very negative impact on the overall relationship. Since September 2020, we have been negotiating with the Chinese on how to find a solution.”

Mr Jaishankar said there were different aspects to the solution but the pressing one was disengagement because “the troops are very very close up to each other and the possibility of something happening, god forbid, is there”. The other aspects, he said are de-escalation, given the troop buildup by China and India’s response to it, and the larger question of boundary settlement.

The focus, for now, is disengagement, the minister said, stressing that while there had been understandings in some areas after 2020, blocking of patrolling remained an issue which was being negotiated for two years.  

“So, what happened on October 21 was that in Depsang and Demchok, we came to the understanding that patrolling would be resumed how it used to be before… This was important because it was an affirmation that if we can do the disengagement, then it is possible for the leadership level to meet, which is what happened (with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting) in Russia’s Kazan during the BRICS summit,” he said during the interaction at FLAME University in Pune.

Future Of Ties

On the question of where the India-China relationship goes from here, Mr Jaishankar said, “I think it is a bit early. We have to wait for things to settle themselves. Because, after four years of a very disturbed border where peace and tranquillity have been shattered, it will naturally take time to rebuild a degree of trust and a willingness to work with each other.”

“If we have reached where we have today, there are two reasons for it. The first is a very determined effort on our part to stand our ground and make our point and this would only happen because the military was there in very, very unimaginable conditions to defend the country. The military did its part and diplomacy did its part,” he emphasised.

The second reason, the minister said, was the importance given to improving infrastructure in the border areas in the past decade. 

“Today, we have put in almost five times annually the resources that would be there a decade ago. That’s showing results and that enables the military to be effectively deployed. I would be patient. When PM Modi and President Xi met, it was decided that the foreign ministers and national security advisers would meet and see how this should be taken forward,” he explained. 

Process On

NDTV had reported on Friday on satellite images showing tents and semi-permanent structures being removed by the Chinese side in Depsang and Demchok. 

The patrolling agreement had been announced by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Monday and army sources had said on Friday that the process of disengagement would be completed in the two contentious areas by October 29. PM Modi and Mr Jinping welcomed the agreement when they met on Wednesday.

The stand-off between the Indian and Chinese armies began on May 2020 and a deadly clash took place in Ladakh’s Galwan the next month in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in action and an unspecified number on the Chinese side also died. 

A troop buildup followed and, after months of talks, Indian and Chinese troops withdrew from the contentious Gogra-Hot Springs area in Ladakh in September 2022 and returned to the pre-April-2020 position.