Donald Trump offers to mediate the ‘raging’ border dispute between India and China

• US President Donald Trump has offered to help ‘mediate’ on the India-China border dispute.
• His offer of help comes at a time when relations between China and the US aren’t at their best.
• The last time he offered to ‘mediate’ on the India-Pakistan issue over Kashmir, India was quick to reiterate that it was a bilateral issue that the two countries would resolve between themselves.

The US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to offer his help to resolve issues between India and China. He announced that both countries have been informed that the US is “ready, willing and able” to mediate their “raging” border dispute.


Trump’s offer to help comes at a time when tensions are high between the US and China too. Just a few hours ago China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, told the press that the situation between India and China is stable. “We are committed to safeguarding our territorial sovereignty and security, and safeguarding peace and stability in the border areas. Now the China-India border area situation is overall stable and controllable,” he said.


Over the past one month, India and China have been locked in a standoff in the Galwan Valley over the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC). Both sides have stepped up their troops in order to assert control. While India wants to maintain the status quo, China wants India to stop its construction activity.

Not the first time that Trump has offered to help on bilateral issues
This isn’t the first time that Trump has offered to “mediate” on bilateral issues that India is facing. In the past, when Pakistan expressed its disappointment about the Indian government revoking Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir — which has been a subject of debate between the two countries since their independence in 1947 — he told White House reporters, “I am willing to help them if they want. They know that. That [offer] is out there.”


Last time around, India was quick to reject the offer, reiterating that the issue of Kashmir between the two nations was a bilateral dispute and would be resolved between them. India asserted that it was an internal matter.

China is fighting a lot of countries at this moment
Experts believe that the current disputes have brought the world’s two largest economies to ‘the brink of a new Cold War’.

“China has no intension to change the US nor replace the US. It is also wishful thinking for the US to change China,” Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, said during his annual news briefing on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress meeting currently underway in Beijing.

The two countries have continuously been clashing on numerous issues from trade to human rights. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has brought about a new low between the two with the US blaming China for inflicting the virus on the rest of the world as 100,000 Americans have died due to the infection. “It came from China. We are not happy about it. We just signed a trade deal, the ink wasn’t dry and all of a sudden this floated in. We are not going to take it lightly,” Trump said during a Listening Session with African-American Leaders in Michigan.

As recently as last week, the Pentagon said that the US Military has had ‘unsafe encounters’ with the Chinese Military in the South China Sea. Reed Werner, the deputy assistant secret of defence for Southeast Asia told Fox News, that there have been ‘at least nine’ incidents involving Chinese fighter jets and US aircraft in the skies over the disputed segment of the waterway.

SEE ALSO:
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India has no plans of backing off as the India-China border in Galwan Valley is up for debate for the third time

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