India-China ties heading in positive direction, focus now on Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage: EAM

Relations between India and China are moving in a “positive direction” after the more than four-year military standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), though “there is work to be done” to normalise ties, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

After the two sides reached an understanding last October to end the face-off at the two remaining friction points of Demchok and Depsang, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met in Russia and agreed to revive several mechanisms to address the border dispute and normalise relations.

Jaishankar, who has met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi since the understanding last October, told a media conclave that India and China are now focusing on issues such as the resumption of direct flights and the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage which had stopped in 2020 either because of the Covid-19 pandemic or the subsequent standoff on the LAC.

“I think we are moving in a positive direction,” he said, indicating the process of normalising relations with China is “very arduous and painstaking”.

“I think there is work to be done. We are at it,” Jaishankar said at the News18 Rising Bharat Summit. “We are looking at it because at the end of the day we have always maintained that the situation which we saw between 2020 and 2024 was not in the interest of either country. It was not in the interest of our relationship.”

The face-off in Ladakh sector of the LAC, especially a brutal clash at Galwan Valley in June 2020 that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops, took bilateral ties to their lowest point since the 1962 border war. After dozens of rounds of diplomatic and military talks, the two sides pulled back frontline forces from friction points such as Pangong Lake, Gogra and Hot Springs.

Jaishankar said the disengagement at Demchok and Depsang was important, and the two sides are still addressing “issues on the border because there’s been a force build up over a period of years”.

He responded to another question on India’s trade imbalances with countries in Asia, including China, by saying that New Delhi has conveyed its concerns in this context to the concerned nations.

“One of the issues for us, for example, has been the review of the Asean-India trade in goods agreement, which we believe has been unnecessarily prolonged and I think it’s important for all countries today to realise that the nature of the global discourse on trade is changing and there are new parameters,” he said.

Countries will take steps to protect their businesses, labour and societies, and India cannot be an exception. “I think we have concerns with many of the countries east of us, countries with whom we have FTA arrangements, also countries with whom we don’t,” he said.

India-China trade was worth $115.82 billion in 2023, with the trade deficit at $83.36 billion. The Indian side has for long complained about lack of access to Chinese markets and non-tariff barriers that have impeded exports.

Jaishankar’s remarks came hours after the Chinese embassy’s spokesperson said China and India, the two largest developing countries, “should stand together to overcome the difficulties” created by the reciprocal tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration in the US.

China has been hit with a 104% tariff by the Trump administration, the highest rate among the dozens of countries targeted in the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs, and the Chinese commerce ministry has pledged to “resolutely take countermeasures”.

The Chinese embassy spokesperson said on social media that China and India, which have a trade relationship based on complementarity and mutual benefit, are both facing the “US abuse of tariffs, which deprives countries, especially Global South countries, of their right to development”.

The “two largest developing countries should stand together to overcome the difficulties” as trade and tariff wars “have no winners”, the spokesperson said. “All countries should uphold the principles of extensive consultation, practice true multilateralism, jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism,” the spokesperson added.

China is a defender of economic globalisation and multilateralism, which has contributed to around 30% of global growth annually, and will work with the rest of the world to safeguard the multilateral trade system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core, the spokesperson said.