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India-China Border Feud Discussed at Quad Meet, Jaishankar Says

The India-China border tensions were discussed at the just-concluded foreign ministers’ meeting of the Quad.

India-China Border Feud Discussed at Quad Meet, Jaishankar Says
The national flags of China and India. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

The India-China border tensions were discussed at the just-concluded foreign ministers’ meeting of the Quad, a regional partnership that comprises Japan, India, U.S. and Australia. 

“Yes, we had a discussion,” India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar told reporters in Melbourne at a press conference on Saturday. “It was part of how we briefed each other about what’s happening in our neighborhood,” Jaishankar added, putting the blame on China for the on-going border conflict.

India-China Border Feud Discussed at Quad Meet, Jaishankar Says

The dispute has “arisen” because China had failed to honor agreements, he said, adding that when a large country disregards written commitments, it becomes a “legitimate concern for the entire international community.” 

India and China have been locked in a vicious border conflict for nearly two years in which 20 Indian troops and at least 4 Chinese soldiers have been killed. Both sides have amassed thousands of soldiers, tanks, artillery guns, fighter jets along the disputed Himalayan border. 

While the two Asian countries have pulled back troops from friction points along the disputed border, talks between the two countries to resolve the problem has been slow with 14 rounds of diplomatic-military meetings yielding little.

The foreign ministers’ meeting is a precursor to a conference of the Quad’s heads of state in Japan later in the year. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.