S Jaishankar said big neighbours will always have issues, but India and China must settle the whole boundary question and guard the peace built since the 1980s.
Updated: October 26, 2026, 10:15 IST
Quick Read
- Jaishankar spoke at the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi, reported on October 25.
- His line: between big countries, between big neighbours, there will be issues.
- He said any settlement must cover the entire boundary, and discussion must start somewhere.
India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has set out, in plain words, how India sees its China problem. Big neighbours will have issues. That is normal. But the boundary question cannot be left half-solved, and peace on the border must be protected.
He spoke at the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi. The report of his remarks came out on October 25. His message was calm, but firm. India wants a working relationship with China. It does not want another breakdown.
What Jaishankar actually said
Jaishankar’s key line was simple: “Between big countries, between big neighbours, there will be issues.” He did not pretend that problems will vanish. Two large countries, sharing a long border, will disagree at times. That is the starting point, not the failure.
He then made a second point. Any settlement must cover the entire boundary. India does not want a fix for one stretch of border while other stretches stay open. A partial deal would leave the same risk in place.
His third point was practical: discussion must start somewhere. Talks do not need a perfect first step. They need a first step. Without talks, small problems grow into big ones.
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Peace since the 1980s, broken at Galwan
Jaishankar pointed back to the 1980s. That is when India and China signed peace and tranquillity agreements for the border. In simple words, both sides agreed to keep the border calm while they talked about where the line should run. Soldiers would not use force to change facts on the ground.
That system held for a long time. From 1975 to 2020, there was no bloodshed on the border. That is 45 years. It is easy to forget how rare that is for two countries with an unsettled border.
Galwan ended that run. The 2020 clash broke a decades-long status quo. Soldiers died. Trust fell. What followed was four years of hard talks. Step by step, both sides worked back toward calm. Peace, in Jaishankar’s telling, was restored, not gifted.
The lesson he draws is clear. Peace on the border is not automatic. It needs agreements, and it needs both sides to follow them. When one side breaks the pattern, the cost is high.
Both sides agree on one thing
See India at the UN on Security Council reform. Jaishankar said both sides agree that a basic working relationship is in the national interest. That is a careful phrase. It does not mean friendship. It does not mean trust. It means both countries see value in talking, trading and managing problems instead of letting them explode.
For India, the interest is clear. China is a huge neighbour and a huge economy. India cannot move it away. It must manage the relationship, border dispute included, while protecting its own security.
For China, the same logic applies in reverse. India is a huge market and a rising power. A broken relationship costs both sides. A working one, even a cold one, is better than a clash.
The same big-neighbour logic runs through India’s wider partnerships — see Lula’s Brazil win and what it means for India.
Trade imbalance: the other half of the message
The boundary was not Jaishankar’s only message this month. On October 14, at a Bloomberg forum, he flagged two trade problems: the trade imbalance and market access for Indian firms.
The trade imbalance means India buys far more from China than China buys from India. That gap matters for jobs and factories in India. Market access means Indian firms face barriers when they try to sell in China. Jaishankar wants those doors opened wider.
Read together, the two messages form one picture. India wants the border settled in full, and it wants trade to be fairer. One without the other is not enough. A calm border with unfair trade still hurts Indian workers. Fair trade with a tense border still risks a clash.
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What happens next
Nothing in Jaishankar’s words promises a quick deal. A settlement covering the entire boundary will take time. Talks will move in steps. Some steps will stall.
What his words do promise is a method: keep talking, cover the whole boundary, and guard the peace that took four years to restore. For people living near the border, and for businesses trading across Asia, that method is the news. The next test will be whether talks keep moving, and whether the border stays calm while they do.
FAQs
What did Jaishankar say about India and China?
At the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi, reported on October 25, he said that between big countries and big neighbours there will be issues, and any settlement must cover the entire boundary.
What happened at Galwan in 2020?
The 2020 Galwan clash ended a decades-long status quo on the border. From 1975 to 2020 there had been no bloodshed. Four years of negotiations followed before peace was restored.
What did Jaishankar say about trade with China?
At an October 14 Bloomberg forum, he flagged the trade imbalance and market access for Indian firms as problems that need fixing alongside the boundary question.
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