Very significantly disturbed ties with China, says Jaishankar

New York: External affairs minister S Jaishankar has said that India and China have a “very significantly disturbed” relationship due to the situation at the border, outlined the many steps on disengagement, patrolling and de-escalation that need to be taken, and claimed that the relationship’s complexities also draw from the unique phenomenin of the parallel rise of two neighbours, both with a billion-plus people, with overlapping peripheries, in the global order.

He also claimed India has a “positive” strategic view of the United States (US) and the Narendra Modi government has shed ideological hesitations to let economic, technological, societal forces deepen ties between the two countries. This, Jaishankar claimed, was driven also by the American willingness to work with non-treaty allies.

Jaishankar made the remarks during a conversation with former American diplomat, Daniel Russel, at Asia Society in New York where the minister captured the changes in the global political landscape through three inter-related processes of rebalancing, multipolarity and plurilateralism, and shifts in the global economic landscape through the idea of resilient supply chains and the rise of digital domain.

Jaishankar also strongly defended India’s complementaries with Russia and offered a hint of what India was doing in the arena of peacemaking in Ukraine in terms of sharing conversations that it was having with the protagonists in the conflict with the other side.

On China, in response to a question on the borders and whether there was progress on disengagement, Jaishankar first offered the historical context of the relationship, the 1962 war, the gradual return of the ambassadors to each other’s country in the mid 1970s, and then the restoration of a normal diplomatic relationship in 1988, based on the understanding that there would be peace and tranquillity at the borders. This was then inscribed in various agreements, which, Jaishankar claimed, China had violated by enhancing its troop presence at the border in 2020; this led to an Indian response; and the proximity led to a mishap, referring indirectly to the Galwan clash from which it had been difficult to recover.

“Until we are able to restore peace and tranquillity at the border and ensure that agreements we have signed are adhered to, it is difficult to carry on with the rest of the relationship. What has been the focus in the past four years is to, in the first instance, disengage the troops. This means they go back to military bases from which they traditionally operate. When I said 75% of it is sorted out, it is only of the disengagement. That is one part of the problem,” Jaishankar said.

He then added that the main issue at the moment was patrolling since both countries used to patrol up to the Line of Actual Control (LAC). “Right now, the patrolling arrangements after 2020 have been disturbed. We have been able to sort out much of the disengagement at the friction points but some of the patrolling issues need to be resolved. Once we deal with disengagement, there is a larger issue. We have both brought large number of troops up to the border. There is what we call the de-escalation issue.”

Jaishankar said that after that, the question was how to deal with the rest of the relationship for right now, for the relationship was “very significantly disturbed”. “There are other issues we need to look at. You have two countries that are neighbours. They are unique because they are the only two countries with over a billion people. They are both rising in the global order and who often have overlapping peripheries other than the fact that they have a common border. It is a very complicated issue.” He said that the parallel rise of India and China present a “very unique problem”.

On ties with the US, Jaishankar termed the change in the relationship as the “biggest foreign policy and strategic transformation of our lives”. He once again offered a brief historical context — of the initial years of non-alignment; of US-China-Pakistan coming together that in turn drew an India-Soviet Union response; and the end of the Cold War opening the doors for both Delhi and Washington DC to readjust their positions. But Jaishankar acknowledged that this still took time due to the need to “declog” the system from impediments and, on the Indian side, hesitations in advancing ties. In the past decade, these hesitations had been shed to allow other “natural forces” to drive the relationship.

On these other forces, the minister said, “One is the strategic recalculation, and different countries reassessing their relationships. On the Indian side, our strategic assessment of the US is positive; on the American side, there is much greater willingness to partner with a country like India which is not a treaty ally.” The second element was economic convergences where Jaishankar said that technology cooperation had been strong and would only get much stronger. The third force, he said, was the societal part given the Indian-American community and the bridge it constitutes.

Jaishankar also defended India’s relationship with Russia not just from the perspective of its historical roots, but also the continued strategic, economic and military complementarities between the two countries. At a time of intensified Indian diplomacy around the Ukraine question, he also acknowledged that India was sharing the conversations it was engaged in, with the different actors, with an eye on peace.

“We, one, believe that wars are not the way of settling disputes; two, we don’t believe that a solution is going to come from the battlefield; and three, we believe that at some point there will be negotiations and this has to involve both parties,” Jaishankar said. This, he said, formed the basis of India’s engagement with both sides, with an eye to see if there was something India could do to hasten the end of the conflict and initiate serious negotiations. “This is the kind of exploration we are doing. It is not that we have a peace plan. We are not suggesting anything. We are having these conversations and sharing these conversations with the other side. And my sense is both sides appreciate this.” He said that there weren’t many countries or leaders who had the ability or willingness to engage Moscow and Kyiv at the same time, and saw India as among the few which could do so.