Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said in an interview given in Washington DC on Tuesday during his US visit that I do not think Prime Minister Narendra Modi has handled the China border dispute well at all. Rahul Gandhi, while talking to the media in Washington DC during his US visit, spoke openly on many important issues including the border dispute with China, India’s production capacity.
Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi said that PM Modi has not handled the border dispute with China properly. Supporting cooperation in the field of production between America and India, he said that both the countries will have to come together to counter China’s non-democratic production model.
Rahul Gandhi said that the world is changing at a rapid pace today. China’s power has increased tremendously. We have relations with the United States and China is our neighboring country. In such a situation, we are right in the middle of all this geopolitical change.
Do you feel that PM Modi has handled the competition between America and China properly? In response to this question, Rahul Gandhi said that okay, if you think that keeping Chinese soldiers in 4,000 square kilometers of our territory can be called handling something well, then it can be considered that we have Chinese soldiers occupying land the size of Delhi in Ladakh.
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To me, this seems like a disaster. If your neighbor occupies 4,000 square kilometers of your territory, what will be the reaction from America in such a situation? Will any President be able to escape by saying that he has handled it well? So I do not think that PM Modi has handled China well at all on the China border dispute. I feel that there is no reason for Chinese soldiers to sit in our territory.
The main question is how do you challenge China on production and value addition? China gets strength from its production capacity. It flourishes and grows rapidly. Be it American or Indian, everyone is buying Chinese products. I can certainly say for India that unless you create jobs for the people of India, you cannot move forward without involving a large number of people.
We are not like Singapore where we focus on services and hope everything will be fine. We need a solution, a long-term strategic vision. The necessary solution will come from production. From our point of view, the central elements of that vision should be democratic ideas – peace, non-violence, cooperation and harmony – the values for which our freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi fought.
He said that you can do it properly only when you have a good understanding of who you are and what your own nature is. When you do not accept who you are and imagine yourself to be something else, then real problems and strategic problems arise. India is a plural and open country. India is not just an idea, but it is many ideas.
The Congress leader further said that the power of India’s democracy is the biggest strategic asset, which we are weakening. The power of India’s democracy is very important. It is not only India’s but it is a global asset. It is being attacked and weakened in India.
