India To Adopt Bilateral Approach On Issues Between China And Other Countries: EAM Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said India wants to make its relations “better and substantive” with China and added that the country will take bilateral approach on issues like 5G. Responding to a question of The Heritage Foundation think-tank, Jaishankar said, “Our intention obviously is to progress our relations with China. We are very clear on that and we get the sense that they too would like to see the relations become better and substantive.”

This has come amid United States’ apprehensions regarding 5G which describes it as a national security issue. Jaishankar, on the other hand, said that for India it is a telecom issue and not political one.

China faces a lot of issues with other countries while India seeks to weigh the issues on their merit and largely take a bilateral approach on all of them. 

“Our position on 5G for example is we don’t see 5G as a political problem. 5G for us is a telecom issue. And we will make whatever decisions we have to at the right time on the merits of that particular decision,” Jaishankar added.

The foreign minister noted that India-China relationship is a complicated one and thus, India has given an enormous amount of time and priority to ties with China.

Moreover, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently Chinese people on the occasion of their country's National Day on Tuesday, saying India cherishes its friendship with China. China celebrated its 70th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on Tuesday with a massive military parade in Beijing.