Put border issue in proper place: China tells India

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held a meeting with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar.

India and China should put border dispute in the "proper place" and work together to bring the situation at their borders "under normalised management" as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar during the meeting on the sidelines of G20 Foreign Ministers's meeting.

"We should put the border issue in the appropriate place in bilateral relations and promote the early shift of the border situation to normalised control," HT quoted Qin as telling to Jaishankar during the meeting.

This is the first meeting of Qin after becoming the China's foreign minister. He took charge of the ministry in December, replacing Wang Yi.

"The two sides should implement the important consensus between the leaders of the two countries, maintain dialogue, settle differences, and promote the improvement of bilateral relations as soon as possible and move forward steadily," Qin stated, as per a Chinese foreign ministry readout released on Friday morning.

India has been maintaining that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas since the border row in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

"China is willing to accelerate the resumption of exchanges and cooperation with India in various fields, resume direct flights as soon as possible and facilitate people-to-people exchanges," Qin said.

Jaishankar conveyed to Qin that the state of India-China relations is "abnormal" as their talks focused on addressing the challenges in bilateral ties, especially that of peace and tranquillity in the border areas, according to a report in PTI.

"We also had a brief discussion on what was happening in the G20 framework. But the thrust of the meeting was really on our bilateral relationship and the challenges in the bilateral relationship, especially that of peace and tranquillity in the border areas," the news agency quoted Jaishankar as saying.

Qin told Jaishankar that both sides should implement the important consensus of the leaders of the two countries, maintain dialogue and properly resolve disputes, and promote the improvement of bilateral ties and the steady moving forward of the relations, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted an official press release from the Chinese foreign ministry as saying.

"The boundary issue should be put in the proper place in bilateral relations," Qin said, adding that the situation on the borders should be brought under normalised management as soon as possible.

China is willing to speed up the resumption of exchanges and cooperation with India in various fields, resume direct flights at the earliest date and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, Qin said. He said that as neighbouring countries and major emerging economies, China and India have far more common interests than differences.

The development and revitalisation of China and India display the strength of developing countries, which will change the future of one-third of the world's population, the future of Asia and even the whole world, Qin noted.

He said "the two sides should view their bilateral relations in the context of the once-in-a-century changes in the world, understand bilateral cooperation from the perspective of their respective national rejuvenation, and be partners on the path to modernisation".

He said China and India have shared interests in many areas including safeguarding the rights and interests of developing countries, promoting South-South cooperation and addressing global challenges such as climate change.

China supports the Indian side in fulfilling its chairmanship of the G20 and is ready to strengthen communication and cooperation to safeguard the common interests of developing countries and international equity and justice, so as to inject stability and positive energy into the world, Qin said.

Relations between China and India have virtually frozen ever since the eastern Ladakh military standoff between the two countries in May 2020.

In line with a decision taken at the 16th round of military talks, the two sides carried out disengagement from Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in September last year.

But the face-off between the two of the planet's biggest military forces lingered on in Demchok and Depsang regions though the Indian side pressed for completion of the disengagement in remaining friction points at the earliest.

With inputs from PTI