Speaking at a Nov. 3 event in Brisbane, Australia, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar spoke favorably, albeit modestly, about the progress so far with China over their border dispute. According to a report in the Economic Times, Jaishankar said: “Yes, we have made some progress. You know, our relations were very, very disturbed for reasons all of you know. We have made some progress in what we call disengagement, which is when troops were very close to each other, with the possibility that could lead to some untoward incident.”
The Minister remarked that there were many aspects of the India-China relationship that were affected by this border dispute, which erupted in 2020 and saw both militaries deployed to monitor the Line of Actual Control. “So clearly, we have to see after the disengagement, what is the direction we go. But we do think the disengagement is a welcome step. It opens up the possibility that other steps could happen,” the Minister said.
Jaishankar added that there are expectations that, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, where the agreement was signed, “both the national security advisor and myself, we would meet our counterpart. So that’s where things are.”
Nonetheless, the Foreign Minister defended India’s role in the Quad military alliance—the implicitly anti-China alliance which includes the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia. “You have four democracies, four market economies, four countries with a strong record of global contributions. All of whom, by the way, happen to be maritime nations, who have found a kind of a common agenda on which to work,” he said. In response to another question, he said: “I mean, the Quad does many things. I mean, from connectivity and climate forecasting to fellowships. So there is a whole set of activities out here,”
The Chinese have also spoken positively about the disengagement process. During the Chinese Foreign Ministry press briefing on Nov. 4, spokeswoman Mao Ning replied to a question on this by simply saying that both Chinese and Indian troops are implementing the resolutions the two sides had agreed upon, and that it is progressing “smoothly.”
