New Delhi: Ten days after meeting with Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, China’s senior most diplomat Wang Yi discussed the border situation with India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and reiterated the call for normalisation of bilateral relations, while the latter said that the ongoing stand-off has “eroded strategic trust”.
The encounter took place in Johannesburg in South Africa where both attended the meeting of the national security advisors of the five members of the BRICS emerging countries bloc on Monday, July 24. Wang had previously met with Jaishankar on the sidelines of the East Asia summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 14.
A Chinese foreign ministry readout said that Wang Yi had reiterated the usual talking points that the two Asian neighbours need to “truly implement the consensus on stabilizing bilateral relations into specific policies, and translate them into concerted actions by various departments and fields”.
He also asserted the countries should “focus on consensus and cooperation, overcome interference and difficulties, and promote the return of bilateral relations to the track of healthy and stable development at an early date”.
Incidentally, the press release also claimed that Wang Yi, who is the director of the Office of the CPC Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, reminded Doval that at end of 2022, “President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi reached an important consensus on stabilizing China-India relations in Bali”.
The two leaders were in Indonesia’s Bali in September 2022 for the G-20 summit. But as per information released by Indian official sources, there had been no meeting and they had only “exchanged courtesies at the conclusion of the dinner”. The Chinese foreign ministry had also not issued any press notes during the G-20 summit about any meeting with the Indian prime minister in Indonesia.
Besides, Doval said, as per the Chinese readout, that India “is willing to work with the Chinese side to find a fundamental way to resolve the border situation in the spirit of mutual understanding and mutual respect, look at the overall situation and the long-term, promote the improvement and development of bilateral relations as soon as possible, and make positive contributions to maintaining world peace and prosperity”.
A day later, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement that NSA Doval had conveyed that the stand-off in eastern Ladakh had “eroded strategic trust and the public and political basis of the relationship”.
“NSA emphasised the importance of continuing efforts to fully resolve the situation and restore peace and tranquility in the border areas, so as to remove impediments to normalcy in bilateral relations. The two sides agreed that the India-China bilateral relationship is significant not only for the two countries but also for the region and world,” it said.
India has usually insisted that normalisation of the relations can only take place after all the friction points of the stand-off are resolved. China has insisted that Depsang and Demchok are not part of the current stand-off, but are legacy issues related to the larger boundary dispute.
The last time that Doval and Wang had met was when the latter had visited New Delhi last year as foreign minister. Their last round of talks under the Special Representatives mechanism was in December 2019.
At the ‘Friends of BRICS’ meeting on cybersecurity, Doval apparently highlighted the linkages between cyber criminals and terrorists, including the use of cyberspace for financing, money laundering, radicalising, lone wolf attacks, recruitment and secured communications, as per official sources.
Doval observed that the younger population, being tech-savvy and having impressionable minds, is especially vulnerable to the dissemination of extremist ideologies through social media platforms.
This article, first published at 8.48 am on July 25, 2023, was republished at 11:20 am on the same day with updates on India’s statement on the meeting.