NEW DELHI External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday made it clear that India’s relations with China cannot become normal until peace and tranquillity are restored on the border between the two countries.

”You can’t have violence on the border and then say the rest of the relationship is insulated,” he said at a discussion at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

Jaishankar admitted that the relationship between the two countries is very complex.

“When any country rises it has a ripple impact on the neighbourhood. We did not have an easy relationship in the past. We later had a series of agreements which stabilised the border,” he noted.

The minister said what happened in 2020 when the Chinese moved a large number of its troops to the Line of Actual Control was in violation of multiple agreements between the two countries.

“We in response moved our troops up. It was a dangerous development,” he said.

He said the two countries have been discussing the disengagement of troops for the last four years so that the Chinese troops can go back to their normal operating positions and the Indian troops can also return.

“Some progress has been made…75 per cent of the disengagement problems have been sorted out,” he said, adding if there is a solution to disengagement and there is a return to peace and tranquillity, India can look at other possibilities.

Asked why the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India. China and South Africa) grouping was formed and the proposal for its expansion, Jaishankar shot back, “There was another club called G7 and you won’t let anyone else enter the club. So we went on to form our club.

“As it started, it gained a life of its own over the period of time. Others saw value in it as well.”