'Business Can't Go on As Usual': Foreign Secretary Says India-China Ties Reflect Situation on Border

Talking about the India-China border conflict, Foreign Secretary Harsh V Shringla on Friday said that business between the two countries could not go on as usual unless there was peace in the border areas.

Shringla said that the conflict was an unprecedented situation, unlike any seen since 1962. “We have lost the lives of our soldiers for the first time, which has not happened in the last 40 years,” he said at an Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) webinar.

“Our businesses can’t go on as usual, unless there’s peace in our border areas. Normal bilateral relationship will be affected,” he said, two days after the Indian government banned 118 mostly-Chinese mobile applications, including the popular online multiplayer game PUBG, after a fresh round of border confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh.

Shringla said there was a linkage between what was happening on the border and the nations’ larger relationship. “It is evident,” he said.

“As far as we are concerned, there will be no compromise in our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Shringla. At the same time, he added that India, as a responsible nation, is always willing to talk. “Our communication lines are open,” he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said he was convinced that a solution for the ongoing border conflict between India and China would only be found through the domain of diplomacy.

Jaishankar had said neither party should change the status quo unilaterally, on a day when India accused China of effecting unilateral change in the status quo of the region along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. According to him, it was vital that the countries reached an accommodation. “The world has a lot riding on it,” he had said.

The tension between the two sides had escalated manifold after the violent clashes in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.