Rahul Gandhi questions Modi government’s lack of global strategy to counter growing Chinese influence

Wayanad MP and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on External Affairs held on Saturday, underscored that the ministry did not have a good global strategy and instead it appeared to have limited itself to enumerating achievements.

Rahul Gandhi pointed this out to the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar after the Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla concluded a one-and-a-half-hour long presentation in the backdrop of the border dispute with China.

The agenda of the consultative meeting was supposed to be “India’s Global Strategy”.

This was the first meeting of the committee after the stand-off with the Chinese troops in May 2020 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan Valley. Consultative committees are forums with the minister or the minister of state in-charge of the ministry as the chairperson.

“All you have presented is bits and pieces of the good work done by the ministry and officials during Covid-19, which includes development assistance to economically weaker countries. I don’t see any good concept note on India’s global strategy. A strategy consists of a few fundamental principles which a country builds up and then mobilises resources, material and power to achieve those goals. You have given some tactical points. This is not strategy,” Gandhi is said to have told Jaishankar.

The MP wanted to know what India’s strategy with respect to the Chinese threat was. Thiruvananthapuram Congress MP Shashi Tharoor agreed with Gandhi and said he also wanted to know about the concerted strategy of the government.

Pointing towards the Chinese attempt to cut-off India, Gandhi said the Chinese are working to build both their terrestrial and maritime influence across Europe, Asia and Africa. “They are using the Belt and Road Initiative and the Maritime Silk Road strategy to link these continents. They will build connectivity and trade linkages through Kashmir, Pakistan and Gwadar in Balochistan, also in Pakistan. This will isolate India,” underscored Gandhi in the meeting.

Belt and Road Initiative is part of the Chinese global strategy to invest in 70 countries to accelerate economic growth across Asia Pacific area, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. The focus has been on investment in infrastructure, education, construction materials, railways and highways, real estate, and iron and steel. The project builds on the old trade routes that once connected China to the West.

As part of the Maritime Silk Route initiative, China is building connections from its coasts to Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Kenya in Africa, Djibouti (the Horn of Africa), then the Red Sea, Egypt’s Suez Canal, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy. These strategies ensure China is connected to these countries through both land and sea routes.

Gandhi, who is also a member of the Parliament's Standing Committee on Defence, asserted that India used to have great trade and cultural linkages with Pakistan, Central Asia, Europe and South-East Asia through the Grand Trunk Road. “Now, China wants to slice us off,” he said.

“Their strategy is to become the nervous system of the world. They are standardising digital connectivity through 5G and additionally trade and connectivity. That is their strategy in a few lines,” asserted Gandhi, while demanding to know India’s strategy as the meeting was called to discuss India’s global strategy.

According to sources, responding to Gandhi, Jaishankar said that he didn’t think that China would become dominant enough to be a threat to India. The Minister said that India’s strategy was to gear up for a multi-polar world as it was unlikely that the world would return to a bi-polar structure.

“We have reviewed our engagements in the neighbourhood, Southeast Asia, Gulf countries and Africa in a much more integrated, tighter and conceptual method. We will use the entire tool kit of alignments with USA, Russia and Japan to protect our interests,” Jaishankar reportedly said.

Gandhi was concerned if India had a strategy in case “the world became bipolar and not multi-polar” as Jaishankar said. “What will India do if there is a competition between USA and China? Pakistan seems to have a clearer strategy. Earlier, they were with the US. Now, they are building closer ties with China. They are getting all kinds of economic and military help from China. Both will work against the interests of India. Our strategy cannot be a laundry list of achievements,” insisted Gandhi.

Jaishankar added that Rs 4,600 crore was spent annually on the Chinese border till 2016 but was increased to Rs 11,800 crore since then. Jaishankar hinted that India needed to build up its defences against China and that the country would pick sides if it had to.

He wanted to know what would happen if a dominant China began to pump money into Kashmir and other restive borders to fuel insurgencies. “We have seen that happen during the height of the Cold War during the eighties. We overcame that because of our domestic democratic strength. Now, even our democracy is under threat. China will use our internal divisions to even hurt India. Europe is divided. Half is aligned with China and the other half with USA,” warned Gandhi.

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, who was also a part of the committee, asked if India would get trampled upon between the two global powers.

Gandhi’s caution comes in the backdrop of his consistent warning about India’s soft stance on China. He had said in July last year that those who were lying about China not entering Indian territory were not patriotic.

In December, he pointed out that China was building a new logistics depot at Golmund, 1,000 km from the Line of Actual Control. It would include an underground petroleum and oil storage facility to help China ramp up military capacities against India.

In the meeting, the consultative committee members wanted to know about the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and if it could be used to counter China. Quad is an informal strategic forum between United States, Japan, Australia and India. They conduct summits and military drills between member countries and exchange information.

However, Jaishankar said that it could not be called a platform for military co-operation like NATO; instead it was more of a platform of economic cooperation.

Many of the members (AAP MP Bhagwant Mann, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi apart from Shashi Tharoor and Rahul Gandhi) raised the issue of domestic fissures such as violence against minorities and branding of Punjab farmers as ‘Khalistanis’. They asserted that these issues, which have a resonance in foreign capitals, would hurt India’s soft power.

Of the 20 MPs who are a part of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on External Affairs, only 10 attended, including a couple of BJP members.