Santo Domingo: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India wants to ensure that its relations with all countries move forward without seeking exclusivity. Violation of border management agreements by Beijing.
Jaishankar, who arrived in Santo Domingo on his first official visit to the Dominican Republic, also said that India has seen a dramatic expansion in connectivity, contacts and cooperation across the region. However, Pakistan remains an exception in the wake of cross-border terrorism, he said while addressing the diplomatic corps and young minds of the Diplomatic School of the Dominican Republic on Friday.
“Whether it is the US, Europe, Russia or Japan, we are trying to ensure that all these relations move forward without seeking exclusivity. China is in a somewhat different category because of the border dispute and the unusual nature of our relations at present. comes.” Jaishankar said, a result of the violation of agreements made by them regarding border management.
He noted that the rise of China and India in parallel time frames is also not without its competitive aspects. “What is happening can be explained as the emergence of India’s potential global footprint when other regions bid for Africa, the Pacific or Latin America. In many cases, it is business or mobility like result of autonomous forces.” They said.
India has been critical of China’s aggressive behavior and deployment of a large number of troops along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, which is in violation of the agreement on border management.
Earlier this week, India strongly told China that the violation of the boundary agreement has “erased” the entire basis of bilateral ties and all boundary-related issues should be resolved as per existing agreements.
The standoff on the eastern Ladakh border started on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Lake area. Relations between the two countries took a nosedive after the fierce clashes in the Galwan Valley in June 2020, which marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.
In his address, Jaishankar spoke about how India interacts with the world and connects Latin America and what should be the meaning of India of today and India of tomorrow.
“India’s most pressing priorities are clearly in its neighbourhood. Given its size and economic strength, it is much to the collective benefit that India adopts a liberal and non-reciprocal approach to cooperation with smaller neighbours.” And that is exactly what we have done in the last decade under Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.
“The region has seen a dramatic expansion in connectivity, connectivity and cooperation. The exception, of course, is Pakistan in the wake of cross-border terrorism. But whether it is the Covid-19 challenge or the recent debt stress, India has always stood by its neighbors have stepped in,” he said, citing the case of Sri Lanka, where India extended over USD 4 billion in economic aid during the island nation’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Jaishankar said that India is developing the concept of an extended neighborhood in all directions. Along with ASEAN, this has taken the form of what New Delhi calls the ‘Act East Policy’, which has opened the way for a deeper engagement with the Indo-Pacific, through a mechanism called the ‘Quad’ among others. being carried forward from India, Japan, America and Australia.
He said that on the west side, the I2U2 (India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States) grouping. In the south, the approach shaping India’s thinking goes by the acronym SAGAR – an Indian word for oceans and in the north, India is pursuing a strategy to engage more effectively with Central Asia.
He said, “For the first time in 2015, Prime Minister Modi articulated a comprehensive vision that extended to the entire Indian Ocean and its islands. This later became the building block for the Indo-Pacific vision that emerged thereafter. ”
He added, “We are also practicing an approach involving all major centers of power. Such multiple-alignment reflects the reality of multipolarity. Obviously, each alignment has its own particular weight and focus.”
The External Affairs Minister said that India has always been a staunch promoter of multilateralism. “We recognize that this is fundamental to the maintenance of the global order. Our contribution over the years has been significant, particularly in peacekeeping. The challenge, however, is the resistance to reform of multilateralism, particularly the United Nations and its bodies in the works,” he said.
He said that when more countries realize that the United Nations cannot meet any challenge, they are going to find arrangements among themselves on urgent issues.
He said, “Overall, India is a nation deeply committed to promoting collective solutions for the global good. Our chairmanship of the G-20 this year will bring global growth and focus to the real challenges of global development. dedicated to.”
On India’s relations with Latin America, he said that in the last decade, this process has been consciously deepened. “Our trade with Latin America is approaching a volume of USD 50 billion today.”
Addressing a separate India-Dominican Republic business event here on Friday, Jaishankar said the trade turnover between India and the Dominican Republic has reached nearly one billion dollars.
He said the two countries concluded talks on a Joint Economic and Trade Cooperation (JETCO) mechanism and expressed hope that it would become a platform for regular meetings addressing opportunities for economic and business cooperation between the two sides.