India diplomat urges defusing China border spat

Bloomberg

India’s top diplomat called for a de-escalation of tensions with China, saying ties between the countries were too intertwined to let a renewed border spat cause lasting damage.
“India and China must not allow differences to become disputes,” Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, who served as India’s Ambassador to China from 2009 to 2013, said in a speech on Tuesday in Singapore.
The countries have points of difference, Jaishankar said, citing India’s trade deficit with China. Still, “the India-China relationship by now has acquired so many dimensions and so much substance that reducing it to black and white argumentation cannot be a serious proposition.”
The Asian powers have been engaged in a weeks-long standoff over territory in a remote area of the Himalayas, one of the most serious flareups since a border war in 1962. Those tensions come against the backdrop of a tussle for influence in the region.
Even with a fast-growing economy, India has been cautious about China’s inroads into South Asia, objecting to President Xi Jinping’s signature “Belt and Road” trade and infrastructure initiative. Belt and Road projects cross through the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed region of Kashmir, which India claims.

‘Back Channel Diplomacy’
Jaishankar’s comments could provide an opening to deescalate the conflict through back channel diplomacy, according to Harsh Pant, an international relations professor at King’s College London.
“It’s a signal that at the diplomatic level India’s willing to engage,” Pant said. “But they also want to send a message that it’s not going to be on China’s terms, given what’s happening operationally on the ground.”
Pant added that “the best option is to do some back channel diplomacy, because publicly, it’s very difficult to back down.”
Stand-offs between India and China have occurred in the past, including when Xi visited New Delhi in 2014. In recent years, both sides have sought to build roads and other infrastructure leading up to their shared border. Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met briefly at a gathering of BRICS nations on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last week, but did not hold a formal bilateral discussion.
India began annual “Malabar” naval exercises with Japan and the US on Monday that showed efforts to address shared threats, the Times of India reported, citing a senior Indian naval officer.