Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Tuesday told a parliamentary panel that China’s stand on the Doklam area on the Sikkim border has been “unusually aggressive and articulate”, reported The Indian Express. He assured the committee that India was using diplomatic channels to ease tensions between the two countries.
Jaishankar also said that the matter had been blown out of proportion because of “supranationalism and media hype”, reported Business Standard. He claimed that the supranationalist narrative of some groups had fuelled the dispute between the two neighbours and hindered efforts at diplomacy.
The foreign secretary further assured the panel that the Ministry of External Affairs was in contact with the Chinese Embassy in Delhi, and that India’s Beijing mission was in talks with the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The standoff in Sikkim’s Doklam area
India and China are currently locked in a diplomatic standoff. Both nations have maintained that troops from the other country had transgressed into their territory in the Sikkim sector’s Doklam area.
Bilateral ties have been strained since the Indian Army stopped China from constructing a road in the region. New Delhi has made it clear that it will not allow China to construct a motorable road up to the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction through the Doklam plateau.
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