Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that border peace is a key factor in India's ties with China. Speaking to NDTV's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Editor-In-Chief Rahul Kanwal at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit (HTLS), S Jaishankar said that the border areas between India and China have remained stable.
"After Oct 24 last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi met, we reached an understanding on the last set of friction points at that time. Since then, by and large, the border areas have remained stable, and patrolling patterns have mostly resumed and are taking place smoothly," Jaishankar said.
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"The key point which we made - that peace and tranquillity in border areas is a prerequisite for good relations - is being maintained and built upon," he added. The foreign minister pointed out that the Galwan Valley clashes were not the only issue in the India-China relationship.
"So there are issues about trade, investment, competition, subsidies, fairness, and transparency. These are real issues as well. I think we are trying to work our way through some of them. Some of them (issues) are easier; some are harder. For example, direct air connections (to China) have stopped. They didn't stop because of the Galwan clashes. They stopped because of COVID. But it so happened after Galwan, we didn't restore that," Jaishankar further said.
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