HTLS 2024: Jaishankar says LAC disengagement must lead to de-escalation

NEW DELHI: The latest disengagement of Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is only part of a process that must lead to de-escalation and resolution of other issues linked to the bilateral relationship, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.

It is reasonable to expect the disengagement will lead to “some improvement” in the bilateral ties, though it will be crucial to ensure equilibrium or stability in what is currently a complicated relationship, Jaishankar said during a conversation with HT’s editor-in-chief R Sukumar at the 22nd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

“I see disengagement as disengagement. Nothing more, nothing less. If you look at our current situation with China, we have an issue where our troops are uncomfortably close along the Line of Actual Control, which required us to disengage,” Jaishankar said while responding to a question on whether the disengagement amounted to the start of a strategic reset.

The understanding between India and China on October 21 was the last of the disengagement agreements. “So that with its implementation, the disengagement part of the problem is at rest,” he said.

“After this, there is the de-escalation, which means the massing of troops along the LAC and all the associated developments with that. And linked with that, the other aspects of the relationship. So, at this moment, frankly we are focused on the disengagement.”

Following the disengagement, he said, “it’s a reasonable supposition that there will be some improvement in the ties”. Asked if this was cause for optimism, he replied: “Perhaps the current situation doesn’t necessarily warrant that at this time.”

India and China reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements at the two “friction points” of Demchok and Depsang on the LAC on October 21, paving the way for the resolution of the military standoff in Ladakh sector that began in April-May 2020. The face-off and a brutal clash at Galway Valley that killed 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops took bilateral ties to an all-time low. two days after the agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years on the margins of the Brics Summit in Russia and decided to revive other mechanisms to address the border issue.

Responding to another question on whether the economic and security arms of the government have differing views on China in the context of the Economic Survey 2024 that called for greater economic engagement with Beijing, Jaishankar said different ministries could have varying points of view.

“I think an accurate way of looking at it is that in every government, different ministries have different responsibilities, and flowing from that responsibility, they have a point of view. You refer to an Economic Survey. In effect, there would be a national security survey which you may not see in public, which would have a national security point of view,” he said.

The external affairs ministry is “an integrator of all points of views” and takes an overall balanced approach. “If somebody has a point of view, then we look at that point of view. We don’t say you can’t have that point of view, but a point of view at the end of the day is not a policy decision,” he added.

India and China, both countries with large populations and a civilisational history, are on the upswing, he said. They are also located next to each other, which makes the management of changes more complex. “So how do you get a sort of equilibrium or a stability when two big countries are changing so profoundly next to each other?” he said.

He said this is not easy since India and China’s societies, politics, economics and mindsets are very different. “You have to factor all this in, in making an approach and that is why it’s such a complicated relationship,” he added.

Jaishankar said Donald Trump had emerged victorious in the US presidential election because of concerns among Americans that the current form of globalisation has not served their interests and made them less secure. There is also rethinking about the US’s terms of engagement with the world and the era when the US felt it was empowered to take care of every global problem could be over, he said.

While Trump is seeking to reset the terms of engagement with other countries, this doesn’t mean he is “turning his back on the world”, Jaishankar said. “He’s telling the world that there’s a different deal on offer, that your access to the American economy, your expectation of American resources and activities, the cost to America, all these will change,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s feasible...that America would turn its back on the world...If you are the number one power, you have to remain engaged with the world, but the terms you are offering to the world are going to be different from the terms which were there,” he added.

However, the US will still need global partners in fields such as manufacturing, technology and national security since it cannot do everything by itself, Jaishankar said. In this context, he said the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) and reworking of supply chains and engineering of new digital chains are unlikely to be affected by the change of government in the US, he said.

“The logic of iCET is, in different domains of high sensitivity, to forge partnerships between countries, governments and societies which have a higher level of trust, where you actually relate to each other...I think we’re going to see that as a structural trend and, my own sense is, if President Trump is determined to make America more competitive and brings to it a strong element of business viability, I think such an America will actually look for partners with whom it can work in a complementary fashion,” he said.

Responding to a question on the role India can play in the resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Jaishankar said it had become very clear that a solution won’t be found on the battlefield.

“What are the choices? One is to stay on the sidelines and say, ‘Well, it doesn’t concern me.’ The other is to give broad homilies and leave it at that. A third one is to back one side or the other, which some countries are doing. And maybe a fourth one is to say, ‘Ok, let me apply myself to this tragic situation. Let me try to do something about it. Maybe it will work. Maybe it will not,” he said.

He pointed out there were very few countries or leaders with the ability to speak to both warring sides, and that Modi had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in June, August and September, and with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July and October.

“What we have been trying to do is to have conversations, in good faith, with the understanding that common points or convergences in those conversations, if the other party was comfortable, we were prepared to share it with the other side,” he said.

“We have not put forward a peace plan. We don’t think it’s our business to do that. Our business is to try to find a way of bringing these two countries to a point where they are able to engage, because, at the end of the day, they have to engage with each other. Others cannot solve the problem if they are not willing to solve it.”