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In order to compete with China on the economic front, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said India should focus on manufacturing, a key sector which was ignored by governments before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Noting that tension at the border with China has caused ‘abnormality’ in New Delhi-Beijing relations, he said India's thinking is absolutely clear that unless there is peace and stability in the border areas, the ties between the two Asian powers will not improve. There is no other way to counter China on the economic front, insisted the career diplomat-turned-politician while replying to questions from audience members on how he saw India's relationship with the world's second largest economy as it moves towards becoming a $5 trillion economy.

Jaishankar said ‘If we talk of rising Bharat, it will rise through technology. You cannot build strong technology on weak manufacturing. At any cost, we should put special emphasis on manufacturing, because that is the only economic response’. He emphasised that tension at the border has affected Sino-Indian ties. He said ‘As you know, there is tension at the border (with China). And this has caused abnormality in our relations. For that our thinking is very clear that unless there is peace and stability at the border, the relations will remain in the same deteriorated condition’.

About the future of the World Trade Organisation amid China dumping goods in India through dubious methods and advanced countries using the WTO to their own convenience, the Minister said while it has its own set of challenges, New Delhi should never leave the global forum. He noted ‘It (WTO) is a formal and accepted forum for talks. Here we would put forward our point, work with allies to save our interest. We recently held a meeting on fishing. We should also explore arrangements at bilateral and group levels’.

He also emphasised that reforms carried out by the government and policies framed to counter Covid-19 have helped India emerge from the pandemic and strengthen its economic position to such an extent that today ‘we are the fastest growing large economy’. He added ‘This is one reason why global perception about India has changed’. He said given India's leadership role, vision, stability, confidence and foreign investment figures, the world wants to collaborate with ‘us in our journey’.