China on Monday said that both India and China must observe and sincerely implement the joint treaties and agreements to ensure stability in the border region.
“On the border issue, China always maintains that we should follow through on treaties and agreements we signed and we jointly uphold peace and tranquility at the border region… We hope the two sides will continue to maintain communication through military and diplomatic channels to resolve the outstanding issues,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
China also asserted that the current the onus of de escalating the Ladakh standoff is India’s responsibility and that India must avoid issuing irresponsible statements regarding the standoff. “As to the China-India relations the merits of the matters are very clear and responsibility does not rest with China… Now the two sides are in communication on improving the border management and the measures to building trust, we hope the Indian side will abide by our agreements do not issue irresponsible remarks and to uphold the peace and tranquility along the border region with concrete actions,” he further said.
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This statement comes in response to India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar’s statement that he had raised India-China relations in the QUAD meet as well as accused China of violating written agreements in 2020 which let to accumulation of troops along the LAC. “… the situation has arisen due to the disregard by China in 2020 of written agreements with us, not to amass forces at the border,” Jaishankar had said in a press brief.
Prior to the QUAD foreign ministers meeting in Australia, China has said that the grouping is a product of America’s Cold-War mentality to maintain its hegemony and contain China’s rise as a legitimate power.
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India and China had held its 14th round of Corps Commander-level meetings on January 12. Both the sides had agreed to maintain crucial diplomatic and military channels for talks to peacefully resolve the border standoff which has been going on since 2020. The standoff took a deadly turn in June 2020 in the Galwan Valley in which 20 Indian soldiers were martyred.
