Minister Jaishankar: China’s border infrastructure budget will increase significantly after 2014

Pune:

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday that India has significantly increased its budget for border infrastructure with China after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister.

India should have learned lessons from the 1962 war, but no progress was made on border infrastructure until 2014, he claimed, adding that the Modi government had increased the budget for border infrastructure from 35 billion rupees to 145 billion rupees.

While interacting with youth at an event titled ‘Why Bharat Matters: Opportunities and Participation for Youth in the Global Situation’, Jaishankar said India must have “realistic, down-to-earth and pragmatic policies” towards China.

“China is our neighbor, whether it is China or any other neighbor, border issue resolution is a challenge. I want to look back at history here, as if we don’t learn from history, we will continue to make mistakes, again, “said the minister.

Jaishankar said that when China occupied Tibet in 1950, then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel wrote to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru expressing his concern for India I feel very uneasy about China policy.

Patel warned India not to take China’s assurances lightly, but Nehru dismissed his concerns and said the Chinese were Asian people and had no ill will towards India.

“He (Nehru) said that the Chinese actually wanted friendship with India and went on to claim that it was impossible for China to cross the Himalayas and attack India,” Jaishankar added.

The minister said that Patel was a pragmatic, down-to-earth and realistic person while Nehru was idealistic and leftist.

“I talk about history because for China, we have to have realistic, down-to-earth and pragmatic policies every time. I push the clock of history forward a little bit because seven to eight years later, China found itself building A road through Aksai Chin, “India protested when it realized they were building a road through our territory. They did not respond initially but later claimed it was their land,” said Jaishankar.

He said that from 1957 to 1962, when China was building roads and preparing for war, the Indian government was busy thinking that India was a non-aligned country, China was a non-Western country, and the two countries had ideological relations.

“We should have learned lessons from the 1962 war. We should have made progress on border infrastructure, but from 1962 to 2014, the government’s idea was not to make any improvements on the border with China. The then defense secretary even said Said: The best defense is to leave the borders without development,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

He said that when Modi became prime minister, the infrastructure budget on the Chinese border was 3,500 billion rupees, and now it is 14,500 billion rupees.

“Recall that over the past few years, new tunnels, roads, bridges have been built along the Chinese border. The Sera Tunnel was built where the Chinese arrived in 1962. So far, we have not made any progress in terms of border infrastructure, How can we make borders a challenge,” he said.

Jaishankar said another serious challenge related to China is economic as the Indian market has been importing goods from China for the past 20 to 25 years.

EAM said: “As a result, our businesses and workforce were affected. Till we started manufacturing in India. In the name of environment, manufacturing was stopped. Even now, a prominent economist claims that India has no manufacturing capacity .”

He asked where the technology would come from and how the country would compete if the country didn’t have manufacturing.

“For me, making vaccines, Chandrayaan, building bridges, building tunnels, creating 5G stack is Bharat. We have to compete (with China). We have to be prepared. There is a possibility that the country may support some anti-India elements among some countries. ideology,” he said.

“However, I can say that today, unlike in 1950, our view on China is clear. We want stable borders without any conflict,” he said.

Agreements between the two countries must be respected, he said, adding that China broke an understanding during the coronavirus pandemic that neither side would bring more than 5,000 troops or large weapons to the Line of Actual Control without permission.

“But we reacted quickly. Indian troops have been deployed there and will continue to be deployed. They will remain there until peace and tranquility is restored at the border. If anyone tries to put pressure on us, we will resist the pressure. That is what we are doing today things to do,” asserted Mr. Jaishankar.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Modi said in an interview with Newsweek that for India, the relationship with China is very important. “We need to urgently resolve the long-term situation on the border between the two countries so that abnormalities in bilateral interactions can be resolved.” has been solved”. Being left behind us. ”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)