More debate than ever on post-2020 China and LAC deal: Jaishankar defends government against accusations of secrecy

Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar addressing a gathering at the launch of a magazine titled ‘India’s World’ in New Delhi on Sunday (Dec 15, 2024). | Photo credit:-

Defending the government on the issue of transparency in India-China relations, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that since 2020, there has been more public debate on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) than ever before.

The LAC agreement announced on October 21 this year, as well as the terms of the disengagement process, have raised many questions, including in the ongoing winter session of Parliament, where Mr Jaishankar was asked whether India would regain its earlier status. Until April 2020, when Chinese PLA troops massed forces and overran the area along the LAC.

Speaking at the opening ceremonyWorld of India”, India’s new bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, Mr Jaishankar said it was unfair to target the Modi government when previous governments had maintained some degree of secrecy on sensitive issues.

“Look where China is concerned, this (relationship) is where there has been a lot of delay,” Mr Jaishankar said, referring to several Indo-China agreements in the past, including the 1993 LAC agreement at Sumdorong Chu, which is still in place. Highly classified. He also referred to the 2005 decision to declare India and China “strategic partners” and the 2006 decision to start negotiations on a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA). “Was there an argument then?” asked Mr. Jaishankar, claiming that the military and industry stakeholders were not consulted on those decisions.

“When people talk about transparency, let’s remember what history is. “I have seen more debate about China in the last four and a half years than I have seen in the last 40 years,” said C., chairman of the strategic analyst and editorial board. said in reply to Rajamohan’s question. New magazine.

The inaugural edition of the magazine, edited by Professor Happyman Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University, focuses on the “Grand Strategy for India”.

‘confidential practice’

Jaishankar, who served in the Indian Foreign Service for decades before becoming the Foreign Minister, said that he had also seen examples where diplomacy would not have yielded results if he had openly discussed it.

“You can’t conduct diplomacy with everything out in the open, because then you know what might happen will never happen.” Expressing his belief that government policymakers would benefit from communicating about such agreements, he said, “The reality is that diplomacy is by nature a secretive exercise.”

Speaking about Indian foreign policy, Mr. Jaishankar said that it is wrong to judge foreign policy in terms of another political system as changes are necessitated by many factors. He listed “four big factors” that started the change in India: when the domestic economic model changed through reforms in 1991, or the international landscape changed from a bipolar Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union to a unipolar US-led world, and now a multipolar world, and when globalization made countries Changed behavior and relationships between, and with the advent of new technological tools driving policy.

“All these factors are changing, how can foreign policy remain the same,” asked Mr. Jaishankar. “When we talk about changing foreign policy, if there is talk of a ‘post-Nehruvian construct’, it should not be taken as a political attack. “It was not necessary for (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi to do that,” he added, referring to India’s economic reforms in 1991. .

Asked about India’s relationship with Europe, Mr. Jaishankar said that the attitude of European countries that had “tough talks” about India’s stance on the Russian war in Ukraine earlier in 2022 was now “encouraging India’s efforts”. Let’s be cooperative in some way in terms of this conflict”, referring to Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Moscow and Kiev and his offer to pass messages between them.

Mr. Jaishankar was speaking to an audience of foreign policy experts and several diplomats present at the launch of the magazine. Notably, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov and Ukraine’s Ambassador Oleksandr Polichuk were sitting in the same row among the diplomats when the Foreign Minister spoke.