Normal ties contingent on peace at border: India's Foreign Secy on border row with China

The Foreign Secretary of India, Harsh Vardhan Shringla has said that India has always stressed the importance of maintaining interaction with Chinese interlocutors that a 'normal bilateral relationship is contingent on peace and tranquility in the border areas and that the resolution on the outstanding border issue was a work in progress.'

Harsh Vardhan was at the Asia Economic Dialogue organised by the Pune International Centre where he observed that China is the second-largest economy in the world and India has a significant trade profile with it. The economic relationship that India shares with China is also being worked on, but considering the important matters that are politically critical to both, he hinted.

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India-China border faceoff

He said that India shares a very long border with China, while the recent disturbances are over a small point in the region, that is Eastern Ladakh. The troops of India and China confronted each other in a border standoff last year that led to a violent clash in the Pangong lake area, and both sides eventually deployed a large number of forces with weaponry in this part of the border.

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However, last month both India and China withdrew their troops and talks are now underway on reaching a resolution on the border dispute. Referring to what Shringla called a 'heavy trade imbalance' that India has with China, he told PTI 
"We have carried quite a heavy trade imbalance for over a number of years. Over time this has increasingly seemed as being unsustainable."

The foreign secretary however acknowledged that India's ties with the US has continued and there is a 'wide range of possibilities to collaborate with the US.' 

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