The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) brief on the Special Representatives (SRs) of India and China, NSA Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi meeting on December 18, 2024 and arriving at a “six Point Consensus” on the boundary issue indicated that everything is hunky dory. (https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm). This was the 23rd meeting SRs and first in five years after 2019.
Two days later on December 20, India explicitly rejected China's claims regarding a “so-called six-point consensus" on the boundary issue, emphasizing that any consensus must respect India's territorial integrity and sovereignty (india-refuses-to-endorse-china-on-lac). This was a surprise especially with no statement by Doval either who was probably shocked by Wang Yi during the meeting. The Ministry of External Affairs still didn’t disclose what Wang Yi demanded.
The MEA briefing on the SRs meeting was therefore clueless - with the consent of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar? Many scholars point to a lack of systematic assessment of analytical capacity of Indian diplomats (beyond routine confidential reports) and compulsory quotas having lowered their standards considerably.
2025 saw China announcing two new counties in Hotan Prefecture, which include parts of Aksai Chin. India launched a “solemn protest” on January 3, with MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal saying parts of these counties fall in India’s Union Territory of Ladakh and Chinese action will have no bearing on New Delhi’s consistent position regarding its sovereignty.
Jaishankar said this territory was taken by China between 1958 and 1962, and the area where a Chinese village has been built in Arunachal Pradesh and was captured by China in 1962.
But in 1962, China captured almost half of Arunachal Pradesh, satellite pictures of 2019 showed no Chinese village/PLA deployment in the said area and the village was built during the ongoing standoff with China.
The usual cliché used by MEA is of different perceptions of LAC on both sides. But if the MEA acknowledges that the Chinese village is in Indian Territory, why was there no patrolling point (PP)/post established in that area?
The discovery of the above Chinese village led to huge protests by Arunachal youth. When a media channel sent the pictures to MEA asking whether the village is in India, the MEA response was completely vague and not what Jaishankar is saying now.
China’s Border Guards Divisions are under the command of the PLA. But in the case of India, even the cover of “One Border, One Force” is not implemented in Ladakh, where the ITBP in the show window is not under the command of the Army. Can Jaishankar explain why?
In Ladakh, the patrolling points (PPs) were established “short” of the LAC, patrolled by the ITBP. But when the PLA came 20 km inside our territory in Depsang, no PLA-ITBP clash was reported. Jaishankar’s tongue-in-cheek explanation was that China had captured “unoccupied territory” - doesn’t matter if they intruded 20-km inside Depsang?
DespiteChina breaking every agreement, the MEA instructions were no arms be carried to the LAC. The video clip of stones being thrown at each other by Chinese and Indian troops close to Pangong Tso showed no arms carried (https://youtu.be/6aSp38jUIIQ?feature=shared).
A subsequent clip showing Chinese and Indian troops jostling each other in North Sikkim also showed no arms carried by either side. China, therefore flew in a team from Beijing with swords and machetes to kill Colonel B Santosh Babu and an accompanying soldier, which set off the night-long Galwan Clash after the second soldier in Col Babu’s party ran back and informed the unit that the CO had been killed. Later when asked if Col Babu’s patrol was carrying arms, it was Jaishankar who said they were.
Most of all, Jaishankar must explain why our troops were withdrawn from the Kailash Range, after applauding its occupation as a strategic triumph? Did Wang Yi threaten that the PLA will otherwise be ordered to press on? What happened to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public pronouncement that he would show “Lal Ankh” (Red Eye) to China? Did Jaishankar advise Modi to play cool and that he would paint India’s pusillanimous response a magnificent success in stopping the Chinese?
Our politicians love bragging without applying brains and knowing the ground realities. Our Ministers boasted, “we will take back Aksai Chin” without acknowledging that the PLA has built a 5 km road short of Galwan. Later in response to media reports about the military exercise at Aksai Chin by the Chinese army’s motorised divisions our response was, “We knew they could reach Ladakh in 24-36 hours, but never thought they would do so”. What a shame!
Jaishankar has so far failed to secure an invitation for Modi to attend Donald Trump’s swearing in as president on January 20. The main reason apparently is that when Modi attended the last Quad summit chaired by President Joe Biden in 2024, he did not meet Trump despite the President-elect announcing that the Indian PM would meet him.
Was this on the advice of Jaishankar? Did we really expect America (which has never had a woman president) to elect Kamala Harris, a black woman as the President? Even Hillary Clinton was not voted in.
In addition, did Jaishankar advise PM Modi to gift diamond jewellery to the US First Lady Jill Biden? Sure, this made Biden allow Modi to hug him but see the difference between this hug and the hug Biden gave to Mohammad Yunus, Chief Advisor to the Interim Government in Bangladesh. Do we doubt that America has handed over Bangladesh to radical Islamists, enabling the China-Pakistan-Bangladesh anti-India nexus?
Now watch Biden award the President’s Medal of Freedom to George Sorors (https://x.com/elonmusk/status), the rich rogue who has been doing his utmost to destabilize India.
Our foreign policy with respect to the immediate neighbours is hardly inspiring. Take for example the total faith being showed in the Taliban, knowing that the Taliban and TTP have the same ideology and the TTP has already captured 18 engineers from Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission (https://x.com/KabulFrontline/status). Doval remains elusive and invisible as ever but can Jaishankar and the MEA cope with the mounting challenges?
Lt General Prakash Katoch is an Indian Army veteran. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.