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Indian Express
3 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Jaishankar in China: A cooperative Beijing is desirable, but a less uncooperative one is India's best bet
Written by Udayan Das For the first time in five years, since the 2020 standoff along the Line of Actual Control, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to China and met President Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and Vice President Han Zheng, before heading off to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's Council of Foreign Ministers (SCO-CFM) meet. The meeting is consistent with the steps taken by New Delhi and Beijing since late last year to restore some normalcy to bilateral ties. This started with the Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan in October 2024, followed by a flurry of high-level meetings, including trips to China by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in December 2024 and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in June 2025. Evidently, we are witnessing the renegotiation of a new order on partly new foundations. The earlier order was facilitated through the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement in 1993, which agreed to incrementally resolve the boundary question through the maintenance of peace and status quo on the borders. As the treaty brought India and China to the table, it built a modicum of trust and transparency that allowed other avenues like trade to develop. This order, however, was broken with the skirmishes in Galwan five years ago. Compared to the presence of a bulwark of institutional commitments and operational trade, the new order possesses an unpredictability of conflict and weaponisation of trade. The road to a new arrangement, like most diplomatic formulations, would not be easy, quick or foolproof. The visit is one of the many steps necessary to create a positive foundation. The meeting indicates India's strategy of simultaneously cooperating and competing with China. There has always been a consensus that New Delhi and Beijing need not agree and cooperate on every issue. The optimal outcome for India would be to cooperate with China wherever possible and evade conflict entirely. Therefore, a sub-optimal outcome is more plausible for India, where they initiate piecemeal cooperation on immediate issues and simultaneously develop instruments that would restrict the chances of conflict. This would also allow both parties to find passages to de-escalate, in case a conflict breaks out. New Delhi has taken this route, evident from Jaishankar stating to his Chinese counterpart that the emerging foundation should be on the principle that 'differences should not become disputes, nor should competition ever become conflict'. There is a clear division of impending issues that need to be resolved rather quickly, while the rest are put on a slow burner. For India, there is a third kind as well: Issues that have a bearing on the relations but are extremely difficult to resolve, and as a result, remain undiscussed. The border question, in this context, remains the most significant and vexed. It is likely to be put aside for a while, again, as there are no immediate resolutions in sight. For India, the answer remains elusive to the question: How do you deal with a militarily superior power in a border conflict? India has initiated internal strengthening, but that is not going to provide results overnight. External intervention remains unreliable as this is strictly a bilateral issue where third parties would not invest or engage without interests. The plausible ways are to simultaneously keep closing the gap and engage with the rival via diplomatic mechanisms. As disengagement is underway at crucial junctures of Eastern Ladakh, the onus is now to arrange a modus vivendi. The issues that can be resolved quickly are in the domain of trade. China's curbs on exporting rare earth magnets are hurting India's automobile sector badly. The Indian government has rightly initiated incentives for home-grown solutions, but developing an alternative supply chain would take time and not immediately compensate for the Chinese withdrawals. EAM Jaishankar specifically brought up the issue of 'restrictive trade measures and roadblocks' that need to be discussed ahead. Finally, there are issues that are undiscussed, like the case of the China-Pakistan relationship and the issue of the Dalai Lama's succession. India's consistent stand on terrorism is commendable, but that is unlikely to have any effect on Beijing's relations with Islamabad. Irrespective of India's symbolic measures, influence or pressure, China and Pakistan would continue to work according to their realist calculations. It is unlikely that India would bring up the Dalai Lama in official discussions. While China has asserted its role in choosing the successor, India has stated that this remains an issue of cultural conventions and not the state. Despite this, China continues to be irked by the Dalai Lama being housed in Dharamsala, acknowledged as a spiritual leader by many in India. In the months to come, India and China are likely to engage further in the making of this new bilateral order. It will not be easy for New Delhi: It has to hold its ground on many issues, continuously strengthen itself internally, and find ways to engage with Beijing for mutual goals. A cooperative China is desirable, but a less uncooperative one is India's best bet to preserve its core interests. The writer teaches at the Department of Political Science, St. Xavier's College, Kolkata and is a Visiting Fellow with Asian Confluence, Shillong
The Hindu
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
The Hindu Morning Digest: July 16, 2025
UIDAI urges parents of children between five and seven to update Aadhaar biometrics The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) urged parents of children between the age of 5 and 7 to update their kids' Aadhaar biometrics. Balasore student death: UGC forms four-member fact finding committee Following the death of a student at the Fakir Mohan (Autonomous) College in Odisha's Balasore, the University Grants Commission, on Tuesday (July 15, 2025), said that it has formed a fact finding committee to investigate the issue. Group Captain Shukla extracted in stable condition from capsule, undergoing post-mission medical evaluation: ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) said that Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla was undergoing a structured post-mission medical evaluation and recovery protocol under the supervision of Axiom Space and ISRO flight surgeons. SCO must have an 'uncompromising position' on terrorism, Jaishankar tells Foreign Ministers The Pahalgam terrorist attack of April 22 was carried out to hurt the Jammu and Kashmir economy and to 'sow a religious divide', External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (SCO-CFM) meeting in China, where other SCO Ministers — including Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar — were present, and called for support to bring the perpetrators to justice. Air India to progressively restore international flights stopped after June 12 crash Air India will partially resume international flights from August 1, after the 'safety pause' necessitated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's safety checks on its Boeing 787-8 fleet following the deadly crash of AI-171 on June 12. Pendency of 'untouchability' cases in courts remains over 97%, shows government report The number of criminal cases registered under the Protection of Civil Rights Act (PCR Act), 1955, for offences related to 'untouchability' has seen a decline, with pendency in courts remaining above 97% and nearly all disposed cases resulting in acquittals, according to the Union government's 2022 annual report on the implementation of the law. Not demonising Mughal rulers in textbooks: NCERT social science panel head The history section of the newly introduced Class 8 social science textbook by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for students in the current 2025-26 academic year portrays Mughal rulers, especially Babur, Akbar, and Aurangzeb, as 'intellectuals' who also 'plundered' the Indian population. U.S. military to remove 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the removal of half of the 4,000 National Guard troops who had been sent to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel during a spate of protests last month, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Trump says any 'credible' Epstein files should be released Donald Trump said on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) the U.S. Justice Department should release all 'credible' information from its probe into notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein as he sought to douse a firestorm of criticism from his supporters over his handling of the case.
The Hindu
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
SCO must have an ‘uncompromising position' on terrorism, Jaishankar tells Foreign Ministers
The Pahalgam terrorist attack of April 22 was carried out to hurt the Jammu and Kashmir economy and to 'sow a religious divide', External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (SCO-CFM) meeting in China, where other SCO Ministers — including Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar — were present, and called for support to bring the perpetrators to justice. On Tuesday (July 15, 2025), Mr. Jaishankar and the other SCO Ministers from Russia, Iran, Belarus and Central Asian states called on Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) before proceeding to the SCO meeting in Tianjin by train. The External Affairs Minister also held bilateral talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, both of whom he met earlier this month at the BRICS summit in Brazil. Mr. Jaishankar's comments came a month after the SCO Defence Ministers' meeting failed to issue a joint statement following differences over the references to terrorism. While no statement was issued after the SCO Foreign Ministers' meeting as well, officials said it was not the practice to do so, as the Foreign Ministers were normally tasked with finalising the agenda for the Summit of leaders on August 31-September 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to Tianjin for the summit, which would be his first such visit since the Galwan clashes in 2020. 'The three evils that SCO was founded to combat were terrorism, separatism and extremism,' Mr. Jaishankar said during his speech at the meeting, where he referred to the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 men, mostly tourists, were religiously identified and killed. 'It was deliberately conducted to undermine the tourism economy of Jammu and Kashmir, while sowing a religious divide', he added, calling for the SCO to take an 'uncompromising position' on the challenge of terrorism, and referring to the UN Security Council resolution issued in April about the attack. Mr. Jaishankar's meeting with Mr. Xi came a day after he held bilateral talks in Beijing with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and called on Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, where he hailed the 'continued normalisation' of India-China relations. The Minister said that he had apprised President Xi of recent developments in bilateral relations. 'I value the guidance of our leaders in that regard', he posted on X, referring to Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi. Chinese state media reported that Mr. Xi had told SCO Ministers that the organisation must play a 'more proactive role' to ensure stability in a 'turbulent and changing international landscape'. Most SCO countries, especially China and India, would be affected if U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead with a planned law imposing 500% tariffs on countries importing Russian oil and sanctioned products. In his comments during the SCO-CFM, Pakistan Foreign Minister Mr. Dar did not refer to the issue of terrorism. In a post on social media, Mr. Dar said that he 'underscored the importance of upholding international law and implementing relevant UNSC resolutions to resolve longstanding disputes', at the meeting and that Pakistan sought peace with 'all its neighbours'. Referring to Afghanistan, which is an SCO observer state but has not been invited since 2021 when the Taliban regime took control of Kabul, Mr. Jaishankar said that the 'compulsions of regional stability are buttressed by [India's] longstanding concern for the well-being of the Afghan people' and called for SCO members to increase development assistance. Taking a swipe at Pakistan for closing transit for India-Afghanistan trade, Mr. Jaishankar said that the 'lack of assured transit within the SCO space…undermines the seriousness of advocating cooperation in economic areas', and advocated for the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that runs through Iran.
