Doklam Standoff Put Severe Pressure On Ties, China Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Sushma Swaraj

Doklam Standoff Put Severe Pressure On Ties, China Told Sushma Swaraj

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj this week in Delhi.

NEW DELHI: The military stand-off in Doklam had put "severe pressure" on relations between China and India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his counterpart Sushma Swaraj at their meeting in Delhi, their first in Delhi after the 73-day border crisis that ended in August this year.

Mr Wang, who had last week credited Beijing handling what he had called the "trespass" into Doklam with "restraint", also underlined that "lessons should be learned and (it) should not happen again," according to news agency Press Trust of India.

Foreign Minister Wang's strong remarks were made, according to the Chinese foreign ministry statement, at his bilateral meeting with the Indian Foreign Minister on Monday. Mr Wang was in Delhi for the Russia-India-China Foreign Ministers' meeting.

"In 2017, relations between China and India have maintained their momentum of development as a whole. Both sides have made efforts in this regard, but they are not very satisfactory," the Foreign Minister was quoted as saying.

"The matter was finally settled peacefully through diplomatic means, reflecting the maturing of bilateral relations," he said, according to news agency IANS. The statement underlined that the two leaders underlined that China and India should regard each other as partners rather than adversaries.

In the middle of June, Chinese soldiers who began constructing a new road were stopped by Indian troops who crossed over the border at Sikkim. China said it had every right to build a road on its terrain; India said that the plateau in fact belongs to Bhutan and that the road changed the status quo at the crucial tri-junction of the borders of India, Bhutan and China.

The new road would give Beijing access to a thin corridor that connects India to its northeastern states.

In August, both sides agreed to withdraw their soldiers from the face-off site at Doklam ahead of the meeting of heads of state from "BRICS" countries due to take place in China, a bloc composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.