New Delhi: On the India and China border dispute, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that till the borders are secured the forces will remain there while interacting with the youths of Pune about India’s global rise and improved opportunities.

He was at Pune for the launch of the Marathi translation of his book: Why Bharat Matters. “Delighted to launch the Marathi translation of my book: #WhyBharatMatters in Pune today. The last decade has seen a profound transformation in our society as much as our diplomacy. Confident that during Modi 3.0, this will serve as the foundation for the journey towards Viksit Bharat,” posted Jaishankar on X.

He added that it was during Covid, that China violated the earlier agreement, according to which no weapons were deployed on the border.

“We want the border to be stable and there should be no tension there…According to the earlier agreement, no major weapons were deployed on the border but during the time of Covid, they violated it… We increased our forces and till the borders are secured the forces are there and will remain there,” Jaishankar said.

He said that India will have to compete with China, and there are potential chances that New Delhi’s neighbouring nations may also support this ideology.

“We will have to compete with China, there is no doubt about that, our neighbouring countries may support our opposing ideology….” Jaishankar said, adding “We should all be clear, in many ways, India and China are very unique. We are unique because we both are old civilizations.”

“There was a time when we would economically dominate the world, and then Western powers came, and we went through 200 years of difficulty. But, today China has become the number 2 economy and we are in the fifth, in the coming 2 or 3 years, we will be at the top 3 and that is the reality…but China, is also a neighbour, and with any neighbour; border settlement is a challenge,” he noted.

On the Aksai Chin border issue, the EAM drew the landscape by giving an example of the time when Sardar Patel wrote a letter to Jawahar Lal Nehru on China’s occupation of Tibet in 1950.

Giving a stark outline of how it unfolded, Jaishankar said, “In 1950, when China occupied Tibet, Sardar Patel wrote a letter to Nehru and said that we are not paying attention to it, Nehru wrote in reply that you are doubting a lot, they are also Asian people, they do not have any such intentions. China cannot come by crossing the Himalayas…so here I tell you…Sardar was a practical person, whereas Pandit Nehru was an ideological and leftist man…So I am starting here with history. Because, with China, we should have been realistic, grounded and practical policies.”

“We are, today in a situation where India has a two-front problem. And, therefore we should make preparations for this,” he noted.

Amid border tensions, in March, India and China exchanged views on ways of achieving complete disengagement and resolving the issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western sector of India-China border areas.

This comes as India-China held its 29th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) on Wednesday in the Chinese capital, Beijing.

Meanwhile, India, in January this year, while reiterating its long-standing position on China, said the two countries continue to engage on the diplomatic and military sides for some sort of a resolution.

“India’s position on China is very well known. It is a relationship, which is not normal, but we have had dialogues both on the military side and on the diplomatic side in October and November. And the idea is that we engage so that we can have some sort of resolution,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Official Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during the weekly media briefing.

The two countries have been in a military standoff for the last three years since May 2020, when the Chinese tried to aggressively alter the status quo on the Line of Actual Control.

India and China held the 29th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) last month.

The two countries exchanged views on ways of achieving complete disengagement and resolving the issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western sector of India-China border areas.