NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar Friday expressed confidence that the incoming Donald Trump administration will continue to back Quad diplomatic grouping, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US, that works to ensure a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. Trump is expected to undertake his first visit to India, during his second term in office, next year for Quad summit.
The minister recalled that Quad saw two upgrades during the first Trump administration, and gave the president-elect credit for restarting the mechanism. “In fact, in 2017, it was the first year of Trump administration when Quad started at a vice minister’s level. Then in 2019, it was again under Trump administration that it moved from vice minister’s level to foreign minister’s level,” he said.
“In 2020, when there was almost a global lockdown, one of the few physical diplomatic meetings which took place in 2020 was actually a Quad meeting in Tokyo. So, if I were to go by the past record, in fact, I would argue that Trump administration deserves a lot of the credit for Quad taking off in its second incarnation and the fact that Quad has since advanced would only validate their judgment,” the minister added. He was speaking at India-Japan Forum organised by Ananta Centre.
Quad was later upgraded to summit level under Biden administration. The minister described Quad as “one of the most expansive sort of intergovernmental coordination”.
On India’s ties with China following eastern Ladakh border row, Jaishankar referred to implementation of the latest disengagement arrangement and said challenges remain with regard to de-escalation on LAC. India and China recently completed the disengagement process in eastern Ladakh and have agreed to resume bilateral exchanges. The special representatives on boundary question, Ajit Doval and Wang Yi, are expected to meet later this month.
“Our entire relationship with China was predicated on the fact that border areas would remain peaceful and stable and we had agreements to ensure that. In 2020, the Chinese chose to bring a lot of forces to the border areas and obviously, we responded with counter-deployments,” the minister said, adding, “We still have challenges left with us. We still have to de-escalate because what we have done is disengage forces from close proximity.”