‘Takes Two Hands to Clap…’: EAM on Why China Should Believe in ‘Workable Relationship’ with India

External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday said China should also believe in a “workable relationship” with India if both countries were to maintain “decent” bilateral ties. He said the current downturn in Indo-China relations were the neighbouring country’s creation and not India’s. “It takes two hands to clap. China, too, must also have that belief in a workable relationship with India,” Jaishankar said in Kolkata.

The minister was speaking after he delivered the Shyama Prasad Lecture on ‘New India and the world’. He said China needed to stop trying to unilaterally change the status quo and must understand that relations between two countries work on mutual interest and respect.

“Our problem is that the present downturn in our ties was not our creation; it was created by China by violating two agreements of 1993 and 1996. If we are to have a decent relationship, they need to observe those agreements and stop trying to unilaterally change the status quo. And they need to come to an understanding that relations between major countries work only when they are based on mutual interest and respect,” Jaishankar said.

He further said it was his endeavour to make China understand that it was important to maintain bilateral ties even though there were some issues in the border areas that remain unresolved. “It is my endeavour to make them understand this. I can only say I am working very hard at it. In the border areas, we have resolved some issues but there are some that remain unresolved. In diplomacy you never give up,” he added.