‘Pending request from China’: India refutes Beijing claim on Modi-Xi meeting
India on Friday refuted China’s claim that the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on…
Calling China a ‘unique problem,’ External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar on Saturday asserted that India is not the only country in the world that is debating about China today.
Decades ago everyone chose to consciously overlook the nature of Chinese production, and are now complaining, the External Affairs Minister said.
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“China is a unique problem because it has a unique polity and economy. It’s not just an Indian problem. If today people are complaining about trade deficits with China, it is because decades ago, we all consciously chose to overlook the nature of Chinese production and the advantages that they enjoyed in a system where they got a level playing field with all the advantages that they brought to bear,” Dr Jaishankar said while addressing the ET World Leaders Forum.
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“There is a general China problem. We are not the only country in the world which is having a debate about China,” he asserted.
Citing an example of Europe and the US, the EAM said: “Go to Europe and ask them: What is today among your major economic or national security debates? It’s about China. Look at the United States, it’s obsessed with China, and rightly so in many ways.”
Meanwhile, the External Affairs Minister further asked, “What happens when you have multiple neighbours?”
And then, making a thinly-veiled reference to neighbouring nations of Bangladesh and Pakistan, Jaishankar termed neighbouring countries as ‘democratic polities’, saying that the change in government will always give rise to political debates in the country.
“You know, by definition, relationships with neighbours are very complicated. They are all democratic polities. The governments will change, and there will be political debates in their country. Often, we will be the centre of those debates. It’s natural as we are a big country. We have to expect, plan and build into our policy, making an expectation that there will be changes, some more organic and some more disruptive in our neighbourhood,” the Minister further said.
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