S Jaishankar on Tuesday said India would focus on finding solutions to border issues with China.
Washington:
The United States wishes India good luck in its efforts to improve strained ties with China, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday, while warning that Chinese leader Xi Jinping finds it very difficult to show any flexibility in territorial issues.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday, after taking office for a second consecutive term, that India would focus on finding solutions to border issues with China that have long strained ties between the neighbors. .
US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who has led US efforts to strengthen ties with India and respond to China’s growing power, was questioned at a think tank in Washington about Jaishankar’s comments.
“I think the truth is that whenever two countries can find some common space to reduce tensions, I think we have to support that,” he said.
“I think we wish the Indians good luck in the deliberations,” he added, before going on to say that Washington was “very confident and comfortable” about its own bilateral relationship with India “and we want that to continue moving forward.”
Campbell said he would be in India next week with Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, to “promote areas of coordination.”
“I think we feel very good about this partnership,” he said, adding, “I think there are some structural issues between China and India that, frankly, will be difficult to resolve.”
Campbell said he believed that for any rapprochement or substantial improvement in relations with China, India would expect changes in the way Beijing treats its contested borders.
“One of the things we’ve seen under Xi Jinping in anything that bridges or touches on territorial issues is that I think it’s very difficult for the Chinese to show any flexibility or any desire to find common ground,” he said.
India and China share a 3,800 km (2,400 mile) border – much of it poorly demarcated – over which the nuclear-armed nations fought a war in 1962. They have been engaged in a military standoff since July 2020, when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in the worst clashes in five decades.
Washington has sought to develop its ties with India despite some differences over issues such as human rights.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
