Government has taken correct step in tri-junction: Shivshankar Menon

NEW DELHI: Former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon has said that India took the right step by asking China to maintain the status quo in the tri-junction with Bhutan as per the 2012 understanding.

“India is very clear in telling China to maintain the status quo. I think that’s a very logical stand… We know each other’s stand very well on the border. There is nothing new to be discussed in this.

All we need now is a political decision,” said Menon, who was India’s Special Representative for boundary talks with China between 2010 and 2014. The former foreign secretary was interacting with the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents in New Delhi on Friday on the current Sino-Indian standoff. The SR mechanism was created when Menon was India’s ambassador to China.

By creating a standoff at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction, Beijing is trying to directly deal with Thimphu, violating the understanding reached by the Sino-Indian Special Representative mechanism in 2012, according to persons familiar with the issue.

Representatives of the two countries had decided in 2012 that matters on tri-junction will be dealt by the SR mechanism. By deciding to deal directly with Bhutan, China has violated the understanding at the SR level and undermined the very mechanism created in 2003. “We have had a working relationship with China. There are big differences but keep the relationship normal.

This basically worked. Not to bother each other on the other core interests, that was how the world was in the 1980s. But it can no longer work today. you have to rework the modus operandi," suggested Menon.