External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India is trying to ensure its ties with all the nations advance without seeking exclusivity, as each one of them has its own particular weight and focus be it with the United States, Europe, Russia, or Japan, however, China falls into a different category.
The Union Minister said this during his address at the MIREX, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, where he was on a visit from April 27 to 29.
Jaishankar noted that China falls into a somewhat different category due to the boundary dispute and the currently abnormal nature of the ties with that country. That is a result of a violation of agreements regarding border management by them, he added.
He said the rise of China and India in a parallel timeframe is also not without its competitive aspects.
"For the first time in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated a comprehensive view that spanned the entirety of the Indian Ocean and its Islands. These subsequently became the building blocks for the Indo-Pacific vision that emerged thereafter. To the north, India has been similarly pursuing a strategy of connecting to Central Asia more effectively and this has taken the form of structured engagements across multiple domains," Jaishankar said.
"These concentric circles of priority give you a conceptual sense of Indian diplomacy and one that we have pursued very assiduously over the last decade. But at a higher level, we are also practising the approach of engaging all significant centres of power, such multi-alignment reflects the reality of multi-polarity," he added.
"Whether it is the United States, Europe, Russia or Japan, we are trying to ensure that all ties, all these ties advance without seeking exclusivity," Jaishankar said without mentioning China.
(With inputs from IANS)
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