New Delhi: The Congress party on Tuesday (January 28) expressed concerns over the Narendra Modi government’s decision to normalise ties with China, citing “unanswered questions” about the disengagement agreement reached in October last year that ended the three-and-half-year-old military stand-off.
On Monday, India and China announced a series of steps to normalise ties, including resuming direct flights, reopening the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, and introducing a liberalised visa regime, following a vice minister-level meeting in Beijing.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh questioned the timing of the move, alleging unresolved territorial issues in eastern Ladakh, where he claimed China occupies 2,000 square kilometres of land previously accessible to Indian patrols before May 2020.
“The Modi government has not yet satisfactorily explained to the country why this is the right time to normalise relations with China,” Ramesh said in a statement.
Referring to Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi’s October 2024 remarks that returning to the April 2020 status quo was the first step towards disengagement, the Congress leader criticised the lack of clarity from the Ministry of External Affairs on whether that status quo had been restored.
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He pointed to external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s December 2024 statement in parliament, where the latter referred to “temporary and limited measures” at friction points to prevent further conflict, a clear indication of the creation of buffer zones.
“These seemingly one-sided concessions are unlike previous confrontations, including Sudorong Chu in 1986 and Depsang in 2013, that ended after the complete restoration of the status quo,” said the statement.
Ramesh accused the government of “a continuation of the pusillanimity” by recalling Prime Minister Modi’s statement of 2020 that “Na koi hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai, na hi koi ghusa hua hai (Neither has anyone entered our borders, nor has anyone intruded),” which he said misrepresented the situation.
“Even as critical areas appear off-limits to our troops, this so-called normalisation will only amplify the trends whose only beneficiaries appear to be the Prime Minister’s cronies and financiers,” said the statement.
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The Congress leader posed six key questions to the government, demanding clarity on whether Indian patrols could access previously claimed areas in Depsang, Demchok, Pangong Tso, and other points.
Our statement on the ‘normalisation’ of an extremely abnormal Indo-China relationship. The Modi Government owes the nation answers to six questions pic.twitter.com/WOEXcpCkXu
Advertisement— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 28, 2025
Ramesh also took aim at India’s economic ties with China, noting that imports from China have surged from $70 billion in 2018-19 to $102 billion in 2023-24, with further growth expected this year. “Even as Indian exports stagnate, China has emerged as the top supplier to critical industrial sectors like electronics, machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and textiles,” he wrote.
