China will be a challenge to India in G20 - Claims former senior official of

New Delhi: India will chair the G20 summit next year. Prime Minister Modi has claimed that this is a huge opportunity for India. But dealing with China in this G20 conference will be the biggest challenge for India, concluded former Deputy National Security Advisor Pankaj Saran. Saran has suggested that India should adopt a cautious approach towards China and monitor its deeds rather than trusting its words.

In an interview with PTI, former Deputy National Security Advisor Saran explained that India expects China to recognise it as an emerging power and deal with it on an equal footing. China will have to decide whether to cooperate with India, which is the chairman of the G20. China will have to be invited for this conference to be held in India. At the same time, China will also be among the invitees to all the conference’s events. In such a situation, India expects China to decide in this regard, keeping in mind that India is a rising economy and power. Pankaj Saran pointed out that there was nothing wrong with it.

China will have to respect India’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and agreements made by China with India to maintain peace and harmony along the border. Along with that, China has to respect India’s fundamental interests, Saran added. For this, China will have to re-establish the pre-2020 status on the border of Ladakh, Saran explained. But Saran has also concluded that China will adopt a very cautious policy towards India in the background of G20. But if China wants peaceful co-existence with India, then the best opportunity to prove it has come in front of China on the occasion of the G20 conference, claimed Pankaj Saran.

Meanwhile, India has clarified its expectations to China, even in the past. India had warned China that cooperation between the countries could not be established by maintaining military deployment on the border. The Foreign Minister of India had brought to China’s attention that reconciliation and harmony on the border are essential for laying the foundation of cooperation between the two countries. But it seems China has not been very keen on this. China says better trade cooperation can be established while keeping border issues pending. However, India had explicitly refused this. Due to this, Indian relations with China yet remain strained.

The Prime Minister of India and the President of China formally met at the recently held G20 conference in Bali, Indonesia. But this meeting was not bilateral but limited to etiquette. Therefore, it was clear that the tension between the two countries still needed to be resolved.

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