New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Ambassador to India Xu Feihong have expressed interest in restoring pre-2020 ties between New Delhi and Beijing. This comes against the backdrop of a churn in global geopolitics as US President Donald Trump shifts the US foreign policy focus to West Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
In a conversation with American podcaster Lex Fridman, Modi surprised everyone by saying that India and China should engage in dialogue, not discord, as well as a “healthy and natural” competition, without allowing it to escalate into disputes. The two nations share deep historical ties, the PM said, adding, “If you look at historical records, for centuries, India and China have learned from each other. Together, they have always contributed to the global good in some way.”
This follows last year’s India-China border disengagement at friction points in Ladakh, nearly five years after the two armies clashed at the Line of Actual Control, disrupting bilateral relations. Resolving differences, New Delhi and Beijing signed a key agreement on border issues in October 2024 after Modi met Xi Jinping at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, earlier.
It’s not just Modi, Wang Yi also emphasised the “positive strides”, adding that the border question shouldn’t come in between ties. Xu Feihong highlighted the “phase of recovery” in bilateral ties.
In Episode 1623 of #CutTheClutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta discusses the dragon-elephant dance in the Trump 2.0 era, which is seeing the US President upend the world order, walk out of global agreements, threaten countries with tariffs and takeovers, and freeze America-Europe collaborations on many fronts.
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