Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a veiled dig at External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over his meeting with China President Xi Jinping and said that he is running a full blown circus aimed at destroying India’s foreign policy.
Rahul Gandhi took to X and wrote, “I guess the Chinese foreign minister will come and apprise Modi about recent developments in China-India ties.”
“The EAM is now running a full blown circus aimed at destroying India’s foreign policy,” the Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli said.
Earlier in the day, Congress General Secretary and communication incharge Jairam Ramesh in a statement took a swipe at Jaishankar and said in his 14 July, 2025, meeting with China’s Vice President Han Zheng, Jaishankar stated that the India-China bilateral relationship “has been steadily improving since the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping in Kazan last October” and that “continued normalisation of our ties can produce mutually beneficial outcomes”.
“Perhaps we should remind the EAM of recent developments in bilateral ties since the PM’s last tête-à-tête with President Xi: China gave total support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, turning it into a testing ground for network-centric warfare and weapon systems such as the J-10C fighter and PL-15E air-to-air missile and assorted drones,” the Congress leader said.
He also said that Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Rahul R Singh has stated that India fought three adversaries in Sindoor, including China that gave Pakistan “live inputs” i.e. real time intelligence on Indian military operations. Pakistan is likely to acquire Chinese J-35 stealth fighters in the near future.
Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP said that China has restricted exports to India of critical materials like rare-earth magnets, speciality fertilisers, and tunnel-boring machines for infrastructure projects. Important sectors like telecoms, pharmaceuticals, and electronics remain critically dependent on Chinese imports, even as the trade deficit with China reaches a record $99.2 billion.
“Hundreds of Chinese workers have departed from India’s Foxconn facilities, potentially impeding India’s attempt to become an alternative global supplier of Apple smart phones,” he said.
The Congress leader also said that Indian patrols continue to require Chinese concurrence to reach their patrolling points in Depsang, Demchok, and Chumar.
“’Buffer zones’ in Galwan, Hot Spring, and Pangong Tso lie predominantly within the Indian claim line, preventing our troops from accessing points to which they had unrestricted access before April 2020,” he noted.
Ramesh said that of course this kowtowing to China is unsurprising given the EAM’s beliefs, infamously voiced two years ago in an interview: “Look, they are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, am I going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy?”
Taking a dig at Modi, Ramesh said, “His boss, the Prime Minister of the laal ankh, had similarly given a public clean chit to the Chinese with his statement of June 19, 2020, when he said, ‘Na koi hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai, na hi koi ghusa hua hai’ – a blatant lie that the Chinese used globally to cover up their infringement of Indian territory and which hurt our negotiating power immensely.”
He also said that when are the EAM and the Prime Minister going to take the people of India into confidence and hold a detailed debate on China in Parliament – as the Indian National Congress has been calling for since 2020.
The Congress hope that the Prime Minister will finally agree to such a discussion and break the five-year drought in the forthcoming Monsoon session of Parliament, he said, adding that if the Parliament could debate the border situation in November 1962 when the Chinese invasion was at its peak, why cannot we discuss now – especially given that both sides appear to want renormalization (albeit without necessarily restoring the May 2020 status quo on the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh)?
“It is essential to build a national consensus on the critical security and economic challenges arising from China’s rise as the world’s leading manufacturing power and its position as the second-largest economy, one that may well surpass the United States within a decade,” Ramesh added.
Also Read: Jaishankar Meets Xi Jinping In Beijing, Focuses On India-China Border Peace And Trade Ties
Ankur Mishra is a journalist who covers an extensive range of news, from business, stock markets, IPOs to geopolitics, world affairs, international crises, and general news. With over a decade of experience in the business domain, Ankur has been associated with some of the reputed media brands. Through a sharp eye on global marketplaces along with deep insights and analysis of business strategies, Ankur brings simplicity to the complex economic matrix to decode market trends and empower people.
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