TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ India will not lower its guard along the Line of Actual Control with China, while maintaining border peace in sync with the “Wuhan” spirit, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said. Nearly a month after talks with her Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe, Sitharaman said both sides recognised that the broad decisions arrived at the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan should govern management of the border.
“Absolutely”, she said when asked whether India is still on guard and not lowering it despite the Wuhan sprit. At the Wuhan summit in April, Modi and Xi resolved to open a new chapter in ties, and directed their militaries to boost coordination along the nearly 3,500 km Sino-India border, months after the most serious military faceoff in decades between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in Doklam triggered fears of an war.
Asked whether the decision of Modi and Xi at the summit to issue strategic guidelines to their militaries to maintain peace along the border is working, she said, “I want to believe it is working.” At the same time, she added that as defence minister of the country she was conscious of the fact that the she will have to keep the border guards alert. “Then I would also be, as Raksha Mantri, I would also be conscious that I have to keep (them) alert… Wuhan spirit, yes,” she said during an interaction.
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