India tells China peace along borders will define bilateral ties

India's defence minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday took a hard line on the persistent boundary row with China over Beijing'sincursion attempts tothe Indian side of Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While meeting his Chinese counterpart General Li Shangfu, Rajnath stressed that bilateral ties between India and China have eroded, and that any form of bilateral engagement between New Delhi and Beijing would be a function of peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control.

Li’s visit to India is the first visit by a Chinese defence minister after the June 2020 Galwan clash following which thebilateral ties between India and China plunged to the lowest.

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Twenty Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese troops were killed in the seven-hour deadly conflict near Patrolling Point 14 in Galwan Valley in northernmost India's Ladakh region. The Chinese PLA’s casualties were twice as many as Indian Army’s though Beijing officially claimed that only four Chinese soldiers were killed.

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A defence ministry statement said that Singh told Li that all issues at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) needed to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements and commitments.

The two ministers held a bilateral meeting on the eve of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers'meeting on Friday.

"The Raksha Mantri [defence minister]categorically conveyed that development of relations between India and China is premised on prevalence of peace and tranquility at the borders," the statement said. "He reiterated that violation of existing agreements has eroded the entire basis of bilateral relations and disengagement at the border will logically be followed with de-escalation."

The defence ministers' meet took place days after the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) held the 18th round of talks to ease prolonged tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

India does not consider its current boundaries with China asinternational border.

The unresolved international boundary, with roots in imperial British cartographic blunders, is called Line of Actual Control in India's north and McMahon Line in the northeast, named after a British administrator Henry McMahon who led the effort to finalise the boundary question with the then-Chinese rulers in 1914.

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