US, China in competitive mode, India & others need to de-risk, diversify to secure interests: Jaishankar - The Indian Express

In first remarks on the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the two countries are in “a competitive mode” and all other countries, including India, are looking to “de-risk” and “diversify” to secure their own interests and ties.

Speaking at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York Monday, after spending an entire week at the UN General Assembly session, Jaishankar, while underlining the complex nature of the Indo-US trade deal negotiations, said the two sides have reached a situation where there is “more or less an understanding on the trade agreement”.

Flagging terrorism emanating from Pakistan as one of India’s key concerns, he said if this is “not fully appreciated” by the US, then it has “an impact” on Delhi’s relationship with Washington.

Referring to the ‘G2’ summit between Trump and Xi in Washington last week, Jaishankar said when the second most consequential or the weightiest economy joins the first, “they may have their points of convergence” but “overall they are in a competitive mode”.

“There are limits to what the two of them can agree upon vis-a-vis the rest of the world. And that then leaves the rest of us, and the rest of us are coming to terms today with a very different America, with the fact that there is also today a certain conversation taking place between America and China,” he said, adding that the rest of the world is busy making its arrangements.

“Each one of us is looking for our optimal solutions. How do we de-risk? How do we diversify? Which are the new partners? Where do we get more value out of an existing partnership? We are really looking today at a difficult global situation. But as always, countries respond, they calculate, they adjust, they find new accommodations, they find new solutions, and that is how the international order develops, and it is that development today that I think the UN is a witness to,” he said.

On the India-US trade negotiations, Jaishankar pointed to the “stakes” and “complexity” involved. “Bear in mind, India is a society of small producers, small agriculture producers, small factories. Apart from the per capita gap between India and the United States, the nature of production, nature of society is very different.”

“A trade negotiation required a certain amount of … patience and detailing to see it through… the expectation that it could rapidly move forward, I think, was tested against a ground reality which was much more complex,” he said.

“Today, we have reached a situation where there is more or less an understanding on the trade agreement.”

On Pakistan, he said, “What for us in India is particularly important is the issue of terrorism. That we feel that… as a country perhaps there are very few countries which have been subjected to the kind of terrorism that we have from a neighbour as part of a deliberate, conscious policy over many, many decades.”

“Now, if something which matters so deeply to us, there isn’t enough understanding or appreciation or empathy of that, I think that creates a problem too. That you know if… one of my primary concerns is not fully appreciated by my partner, then clearly there is an impact of that on the relationship,” he said, referring to the ties between India and the US.

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 27 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting and writing explainers and analysis on foreign affairs for about 19 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He won the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award, 2023, for the second time for his reporting of the Oct 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More