Jaishankar with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi
External affairs minister S Jaishankar underlined the significance of fair market access, trade balance and supply chain reliability in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, while welcoming recent measures to normalise Sino-Indian ties like the upgrading of the visa framework and resumption of direct flights, Kailash pilgrimage and border trade. In a meeting in Manila on the margins of ASEAN events, Jaishankar also stressed that border peace and tranquility will remain a prerequisite for normal ties. Ahead of the BRICS summit India will host in September, he thanked Wang for China’s support for India’s presidency. While a final confirmation from Beijing is still awaited, President Xi is likely to attend the summit. India’s relations with China have improved considerably since PM Narendra Modi and Xi met in Kazan in 2024, marking the end of the border standoff in eastern Ladakh. However, for India, addressing economic friction in ties including over the asymmetrical $ 100 billion trade imbalance and the need for Indian manufacturing to reliably access Chinese raw materials remains an essential next step for broader normalisation. According to official sources, India continues to raise issues related to trade restrictions imposed by Beijing and is working with the Chinese government to ensure predictability in supply chains for trade consistent with international practices. “Fair market access and a trade balance ranks high in that regard. There are also concerns about predictability of supply chains. Facilitating both official and people-to-people exchanges merit our attention. We also need to agree on the meetings of various mechanisms and platforms as per our mutual priorities,” said the minister in his opening remarks, underscoring the significance of the meeting in an extremely complicated global situation. Jaishankar said that while both sides had engaged to ensure border peace since October 2024, this issue would continue to need constant attention and that relevant mechanisms in that domain had to be given full support and strong encouragement. “It is natural that as two large and important nations, and that too proximate neighbours, India and China would have their own particular interests. That is why our leaders had agreed that differences should not become disputes. It is the responsibility of diplomacy to properly manage them,” said the minister. The minister reiterated India’s position that the bilateral relationship must be built around the “3 mutuals” or mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity. “We believe that a stable and cooperative relationship can best be developed on the basis of mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity,” said Jaishankar, adding that such a relationship can make a valuable contribution to a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world. The minister said that relations have been gradually normalising since the October 2024 Kazan Modi-Xi meeting and this was further affirmed when the leaders met in Tianjin last year. Modi travelled to Tianjin in August 2024 for the SCO summit.
