Sweet words won't reset India-China ties: Salman Khurshid after PM Modi-Xi meet at BRICS

After the Modi-Xi meeting at the BRICS summit, Salman Khurshid said India-China ties cannot be repaired by rhetoric alone. He said specific steps, greater trust and fuller information sharing are needed to test any real reset.

In Short

• Khurshid said both sides must examine why past confrontations kept recurring
• He urged less officialese and more detailed, candid discussions on disputes
• Trust, he argued, should begin with information sharing before verification

India-China ties have worsened over the years and cannot be reset through diplomatic rhetoric alone, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said, calling for a more candid conversation, greater trust and concrete action between the two countries.

Speaking about the outcomes of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi and the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Khurshid said repeated assurances that the relationship had been "put back on track" were not enough.

"I think that it's worsened. Over a period, it's worsened. It's become, depressingly, very bad," Khurshid said.

His remarks came after PM Modi and Xi held their bilateral meeting in Delhi, where the two sides spoke about drawing from each other's strengths and helping each other succeed.

Khurshid, who served as external affairs minister during the UPA government, said India needed to assess where the relationship had started, what progress had been made through recent conversations and what remained to be done.

‘GENERALITIES WILL NOT DO’ WITH CHINA

Khurshid said there was a need to move beyond broad diplomatic expressions and focus on specific issues.

"There are moments in which we are told repeatedly that we've now put it back on track, we've now put it back on track. I don't think that that's enough," he said.

"So generalities will not do. I think we need to do something very, very specific."

He said India needed a candid conversation with China, not necessarily to apportion blame but to understand why tensions and confrontations had occurred and how they could be prevented in the future.

"Not to apportion blame, but at least to ask, why do you think these things happen? Why do these things happen and what is the way to prevent these things from happening?" Khurshid said.

He argued that there had been too much formalism and "officialese" in India's engagement with China and called for a more substantive conversation.

‘TRUST BUT VERIFY’ WITH CHINA

Referring to past border confrontations, including Chumar, Depsang, Dolam, Galwan and Thag La, Khurshid said India needed to verify whether the current engagement represented a genuine reset.

He backed the principle of "trust but verify", but said trust itself had to be built first through greater information sharing.

"You have to trust each other first, and the trust will come only with sharing of information. Thereafter, we begin to verify and trust, as you've said, trust but verify and verify and then trust," he said.

Khurshid also criticised the political exchanges between the government and the opposition over India's China policy, saying accusations of being "pro-China" or claims that the government was "giving in to China" did not help create the conditions for meaningful engagement.

"Congress saying that you are giving in to China is not the best way to prepare to have a meaningful conversation with China," he said.

He called for greater sharing of information between the government and the opposition so that the latter could support the government in an informed manner when required.

"If you can't take a conversation with the opposition further, how will you take a conversation with China any further?" he asked.

INDIA MUST ALSO ADDRESS TRADE DEFICIT

Khurshid said concrete results from the India-China engagement could not depend entirely on Beijing.

Responding to a question on greater access for Indian goods to Chinese markets and peace and tranquillity along the border, he said both countries had responsibilities.

"The concrete results are not entirely in the hands of China," he said.

According to Khurshid, China could take steps to address the trade deficit, but India also needed to examine what it could do at its own end.

"We can't just leave it all at their door and say that, 'Now they have to put their house in order so that we can ensure that there is no trade deficit.' Must be something that we need to do," he said.

He called for a step-by-step plan to reduce the trade deficit.

BRICS CONSENSUS A ‘GOOD BEGINNING’

On the BRICS summit, Khurshid described the unanimous adoption of the New Delhi Declaration as part of a continuing process in the grouping.

He said the declaration's explicit condemnation of the Pahalgam terror attack and cross-border terrorism represented forward movement, while acknowledging that there could be disappointment over the absence of a direct reference to Pakistan.

"This is not something, a rabbit out of a hat suddenly. This is something that's been happening over a period, over different BRICS sessions, et cetera. And we've gone in the right direction," he said.

Khurshid said that in a multilateral forum, it was not always possible to include everything that individual countries wanted.

"There will be disappointments. There are disappointments in India about not specifically mentioning the country from where cross-border terrorism is inflicted on India," he said.

"But, you know, when you're in a multilateral situation, everything is not always possible. But what is possible is put down, and if that points to something more possibly in the future, then that can be said to be satisfactory or at least a good beginning."

He also cautioned against expecting Pakistan to reform simply through "naming and shaming", arguing that the experience of the past several decades did not support such an approach.

"We may have to go beyond the declaration. We may have to go beyond BRICS to the larger diplomatic outreach that we have to continue," he said.

INDIA’S BALANCING ACT AT BRICS

Khurshid said India faced a difficult task in maintaining its relationships with BRICS partners while also preserving its deep engagement with the US and Europe.

"We can't just give up our relationship with one set of countries and say that we will deal only with another set of countries. That's not what India's position has ever been," he said.

He pointed to the reference to Bandung in the BRICS declaration and said it raised questions about whether India was moving towards a redesigned form of non-alignment.

"Non-alignment has not been mentioned, but Bandung is mentioned, which is where non-alignment began," he said.

Khurshid rejected the idea that "multi-alignment" necessarily offered a better framework, arguing that non-alignment allowed India greater freedom to deal with countries according to its interests.

"If you're aligned already, then where is the freedom?" he asked.

He said multilateralism, however, remained important and argued that global institutions needed to be strengthened, with the voice of the Global South reflected in organisations ranging from the United Nations to the IMF and World Bank.

PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE CONTACT WITH CHINA

Despite the deterioration in bilateral ties, Khurshid said India and China had continued to maintain channels of people-to-people contact.

He pointed to the easing of some travel-related issues, including flights and visas, as signs of engagement being restored.

"There are some things that we need to do at home, and there are some things that we need to do with China, and there's something that China needs to do at its own end," he said.

For Khurshid, the challenge now is to convert the broad language of partnership and "win-win cooperation" into specific steps that can rebuild trust, address the border situation and narrow the trade deficit.

- Ends