Jaishankar blames China for not observing longstanding written agreements

Taking a dig at China, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said Beijing has not observed longstanding written agreements with India and blamed it for the bloodshed at the borders in 2020, the first in more than four decades.

Speaking here at the inaugural Raisina Roundtable in Tokyo, an event by the think tank, Jaishankar also spoke about how he expected a change in Russia’s direction towards the rest of the world and it may likely want multiple options in Asia.

On a two-day trip to Japan, Jaishankar elaborated on the changing world order, saying, “There is a reality of a very big power shift in the Indo-Pacific. When there are very big shifts in capabilities and influence and presumably ambitions, then there are all the accompanying ambitions and strategic consequences.”

“Now, it’s not an issue whether you like it or you don’t like it. There’s a reality out there, you have to deal with that reality,” he said and added, “Ideally, we would assume that everybody would say, okay, things are changing, but let’s keep it as stable as we can.” “Unfortunately, that’s not what we have seen in the last decade of our own experience in the case of China, for example, is between 1975 to 2020, which is really 45 years, there was no bloodshed on the border, and in 2020, changed,” he said.