‘Running full-blown circus aimed at destroying India’s foreign policy’: Congress hits out at S Jaishankar

Jaishankar made the remarks on Monday on his first visit to China since the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020. He told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that while India and China have made good progress in the past nine months towards the normalisation of bilateral relations, they should work to address de-escalation on the border.

The Congress also released a statement on Tuesday, saying that it would like to “remind the EAM of recent developments in bilateral ties since the PM’s last tête-à-tête with President Xi”.

“China gave total support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, turning it into a testing ground for network-centric warfare and weapon systems such as the J-10C fighter and PL-15E air-to-air missile and assorted drones. Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Rahul R Singh has stated that India fought three adversaries in Sindoor, including China that gave Pakistan “live inputs” i.e. real time intelligence on Indian military operations. Pakistan is likely to acquire Chinese J-35 stealth fighters in the near future,” said the statement, released by Congress MP and communication in charge Jairam Ramesh.

The statement further said that China “has restricted exports to India of critical materials like rare-earth magnets, speciality fertilisers, and tunnel-boring machines for infrastructure projects”.

“Important sectors like telecoms, pharmaceuticals, and electronics remain critically dependent on Chinese imports, even as the trade deficit with China reaches a record $99.2 billion,” it said.

The party also said that “Indian patrols continue to require Chinese concurrence to reach their patrolling points in Depsang, Demchok, and Chumar”.

“‘Buffer zones’ in Galwan, Hot Spring, and Pangong Tso lie predominantly within the Indian claim line, preventing our troops from accessing points to which they had unrestricted access before April 2020,” said the statement.

The Congress said that “this kowtowing to China is unsurprising given the EAM’s beliefs”. Quoting an interview from two years ago, the statement said: “Look, they are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, am I going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy?”

Targeting PM Modi, the Congress said, “His boss, the Prime Minister of the laal ankh, had similarly given a public clean chit to the Chinese with his statement of June 19, 2020, when he said, ‘Na koi hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai, na hi koi ghusa hua hai’.”

The party asked “when the EAM and his boss the PM are going to take the people of India into confidence and hold a detailed debate on China in Parliament as the Indian National Congress has been calling for since 2020”.

The Congress said that it hoped that PM Modi would agree to such a discussion and “break the five-year drought” in the forthcoming Monsoon session of Parliament. “If Parliament could debate the border situation in November 1962 when the Chinese invasion was at its peak, why cannot we discuss now – especially given that both sides appear to want renormalisation (albeit without necessarily restoring the May 2020 status, quo on the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh)?” the statement said.

It added, “It is essential to build a national consensus on the critical security and economic challenges arising from China’s rise as the world’s leading manufacturing power and its position as the second-largest economy, one that may well surpass the United States within a decade.”