Need for India, China to find ways to return stability to disputed border

India minister says challenge for the two rising powers is finding sustainable equilibrium

- Connie Er

As a long-running border dispute between India and China flares up again with heated rhetoric on both sides in recent days, India's External Affairs Minister, Dr S. Jaishankar, says that returning stability on that front is needed before the relationship between the two Asian giants can move forward.

In his first public remarks since the latest verbal sparring over Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as Zangnan as part of South Tibet following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's inauguration of a tunnel there earlier in March, Dr Jaishankar says India is "today trying to find a way".

"And it's not easy. I have myself invested, you know, a great deal of effort with my counterpart (in China). And at the military commanders level, at the diplomatic level, we've had 20-plus rounds of talks." Speaking at a lecture organised by the National University of Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) here on March 23, he makes clear that the territorial spat will not be resolved in a hurry.

But a necessary initial step is to find a way to return to the "peace and tranquillity" on the border that had existed for 45 years, after India's loss of four soldiers in 1975.

The two countries have entered into various bilateral agreements between 1993 and 2013 to prevent the situation from escalating.