India, China going through a rough patch: S Jaishankar

New Delhi : Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that India and China are going through a rough patch in their relations, credit to Beijing taking some steps which are in violations to the two nations. He said that it is with the Chinese leadership to answer where they want to take the bilateral relationship.

"I don't think the Chinese have any doubt on where we stand on our relationship and what's not gone right with it. I've been meeting my counterpart Wang Yi a number of times. As you would have experienced, I speak fairly clear, reasonably understandably there is no lack of clarity so if they want to hear it I am sure they would have heard it," Mr Jaishankar said in response to a question at a panel "Greater Power Competition: The Emerging World Order" at the Bloomberg New Economic Forum in Singapore.

"We are going through a particularly bad patch in our relationship because they have taken a set of actions in violation of agreements for which they still don't have a credible explanation and that indicates some rethink about where they want to take our relationship, but that's for them to answer," Mr Jaishankar said, in an apparent reference to the eastern Ladakh border clash with China.

The standoff between India and China started in Ladkah last year in May following a violant clash in Pangong Lake areas. Both sides had deployed thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry.

On Thursday, the two sides agreed to hold the 14th round of military talks at an early date to achieve the objective of complete disengagement in remaining friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

(image)