Mumbai, Jan 29: The recent disengagement of troops with China in eastern Ladakh has given a small opening to India, but the “big issues” remain, foreign policy expert C Raja Mohan has said.
He also said India must work towards further strengthening its ties with the US for the country’s technological and economic growth.
“There is a bit of easing. You will have direct flights (between India and China), you have visas, the (resumption of) Mansarovar yatra, but you still have 50,000 troops facing each other. You have a 100 USD billion trade deficit. They (China) are building a big dam on Brahmaputra,” Mohan said on Tuesday at an event organised by the Asia Society India.
The discussion was moderated by senior journalist Suhasini Haidar.
There is military disengagement as opposed to de-escalation. “That has given us a small opening but the big issues with China remain,” Mohan said.
India and China on Monday announced a series of measures to “rebuild” ties, including resuming Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer and agreeing in principle to restore direct flights, in a significant move aimed at normalising their relations after completing the disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh.
The decisions were announced after Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri held wide-ranging talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong in Beijing.
Responding, meanwhile, to a question on whether India is prepared for an AI-driven world, Taimur Baig, Managing Director and Chief Economist DBS Research Group, said he sees promising examples in India.
“The yield in the (iPhone maker) Apple plant in India is almost as good as (that of) the ones in China. This was something nobody expected. Everybody thought that actually Apple will struggle because iPhone assembly is immensely complex,” he said.
“It is not just putting a few things together. There is a huge amount of testing, packaging, assembly involved (which) requires substantial local knowhow,” Baig said citing interaction with Foxconn executives who are involved with the Apple supply chains in India.
Apple is “super impressed” with the production of its products in India, Baig said.
India needs to seize the opportunities that geopolitics presents, he added.
Former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, who served as its permanent representative to the United Nations, said Europe had a tremendous opportunity to play a third pole in the US-China contest and they could increase their leverage.
However, Europe has given up their leverage and completely become dependent on the US and now the US writes Europe’s policy towards China in many areas, he said.
