The world must give Russia more options, rather than “closing doors” on it and pushing it towards a closer embrace with China, said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday. Speaking on the last day of the Ministry of External Affairs’s annual Raisina Dialogue, Mr. Jaishankar also said China should not be allowed to play “mind games” that deter countries from working with other partners.
Hitting out at China for breaking agreements and changing its “behaviour at the border” since the LAC stand-off in April 2020, he indicated that China wants the border issues to be resolved while not bringing other international players, namely the U.S., into India’s strategic calculus.
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“The mind games, which will be played, would be that it’s just between the two of us that no other country should exist in our relationship,” Mr. Jaishankar said during a discussion on think tanks.
He said India wouldn’t “give another country, which is clearly a competitive country, a veto over our policy choices...We should be confident enough to leverage the international system to create the best possible outcome”.
Significant comments
Mr. Jaishankar’s comments were significant as they come a day after the Defence Secretary also lashed out at China during a discussion at the Ind-US X forum in Delhi, calling Beijing a “bully”. Mr. Jaishankar was asked about the comments as well as his own earlier statement that a “non-Western” P-5 power was opposing India’s claim for a seat at the UN Security Council.
When asked about whether India worries about Russia and China coming closer post the Ukraine conflict, Mr. Jaishankar said that it is a mistake for western countries to “railroad Russia into a single option.”
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“What’s happened today with Russia is essentially a lot of doors have been shut to Russia in the West. We know the reasons why Russia is turning to parts of the world which are not West. Now, I think it makes sense to give Russia multiple options.” Praising Russia as “a power with an enormous tradition of statecraft,” Mr. Jaishankar asserted that Russia would not submit to “single relationship of overwhelming nature. It would go against the grain.”
