‘No clarity at all’: Cong questions timing of mending ties with China
New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday posed several questions to the government on ties with China, asking whether status quo was restored as of May 2020 at the border in eastern Ladakh and if Indian troops could access areas that had become out of bound.
In a statement, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said the party notes the announcement by the Narendra Modi government of normalisation of ties with China at a time when there are still many unanswered questions about the disengagement agreement of October 21, 2024.
“New Delhi and Beijing have agreed to restore commercial and cultural ties including direct flights between the two capitals, resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, liberalised visa regime and other measures following the recent Beijing visit of the Foreign Secretary. The Modi government has not yet satisfactorily explained to the country why this is the right time to normalise relations with China. Ever since the Chinese occupied 2,000 sq km of territory in eastern Ladakh that had been accessed by Indian patrols until May 2020, the people and the armed forces of the country have held that the Government of India must insist on a restoration of the status quo ante as it stood prior to that,” he said in his statement.
Ties between India and China had deteriorated after bloody clashes between the troops of both countries at the Galwan valley in early May 2020 in which several soldiers were killed on both sides.
“Our statement on the ‘normalisation’ of an extremely abnormal Indo-China relationship. The Modi Government owes the nation answers to six questions,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
Quoting Army Chief Gen Upendra Dwivedi, who had remarked “We want to go back to the status quo of April 2020... thereafter we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of the LAC,” Ramesh said: “Yet successive statements by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) casts doubt on whether we have returned to the status quo.”
Ramesh said instead of reducing our dependence on China, the Modi government has allowed Chinese exports to India to jump from $70 billion in 2018-19 to a record $102 billion in 2023-24.
