At a couple of forums in which he was keynote speaker last week, external affairs minister Jaishankar did some plain speaking on India’s ties with its neighbours China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. His speeches may have drawn applause as he made the point about India’s prickly neighbours with whom we share land borders. It is, however, debatable if the country’s top diplomat had to speak out like this.
The point is being abrasive about relationships in public is not going to change anything while airing frank opinions will probably harm the prospects of diplomacy to heal the wounds that are bedevilling India’s hopes of living in peace where its economic heft is adding to its stature when seen from far beyond the South Asian neighbourhood.
No amount of tough talking is likely to alter the Pakistan Army’s policy of exporting terror to Jammu & Kashmir. Ever since Kasab and his cohorts attacked Mumbai in 2008, there has not even been a pretence of plausible deniability about Pakistan’s actions in sponsoring cross-border terror, however much it is also a victim of terror coming from other directions.
So long as Pakistan remains committed to the destabilisation of India using its territorial claims to Kashmir as an excuse, there is little scope for a resumption of talks, which hasn’t taken place in any case for close to a decade now.
China’s intransigence on the border and its clever diplomacy in solving a part of the problem that strategically suited it most through talks after the Galwan clashes of 2020 is too well-known. It is more pertinent that the foreign minister chose to air the trade deficit problem which, at $41.88 billion in trade of $50.4 bn (January to June 2024 figures), makes China India’s largest trade deficit partner.
This deficit is particularly worrying since most of it is owing to the import of industrial products to make which India may have the knowhow but not the advantages that enterprise backed by the state of China gives by way of support and subsidies.
Since there is little that can be done about the bristling border situation as it exists now, maybe India can benefit by cherry picking from the minister’s frank comments and looking at how import substitution could work when it comes to Chinese goods.
