New York

Theties between India and China are "better" today as compared to a couple of years ago, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said, underlining that as the border issues are resolved, the relationship returns to normalcy.

Jaishankar was responding to a question on India-China relations, which have seen an upswing in recent times, including with President Xi Jinping's recent visit to India for the BRICS Leaders' Summit hosted by New Delhi. "If you asked me, compared to where you were in 2025, is the relationship better today? I would say yes. Compared to 2024, even more so,” Jaishankar said during a conversation hosted at Asia Society.

He said it’s not so much a “structural change”, but part of the reason why things have improved is “they had gone so much off-track that the moment you stabilised it, it was going to improve, because after what happened in 2020 and the long standoff that we had on the border, the relationship had really been impacted.” Following the 2020 border standoff between India and China, all “normal contacts" between the two nations had come to a halt, he said, adding that while “trade was continuing”, official exchanges, visa issuance, and flights had been impacted. “So once the border standoff was resolved, it was natural that this would start to improve,” he said.

There was also this logic, which Delhi had long been conveying to Beijing, that a “standoff between us, a dip in our relationship, actually doesn't help either of us. In fact, it is third parties who will take advantage of that.

“We also maintained consistently a very elementary principle of statecraft - don't get locked into a problem which benefits others,” Jaishankar said.

New York

A trade agreement between India and the US, if concluded, would contribute to “better” bilateral ties, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, noting that expectations of rapid progress in negotiations had been “tested” against a much more complex ground reality. Jaishankar addressed prominent members of the Indian-American and diaspora community as well as policy experts on Monday at a special conversation hosted by the Asia Society, as the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly concluded in New York.

During a conversation moderated by former American diplomat and distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Daniel Russel, Jaishankar was asked about India-US relations, particularly developments related to trade and tariffs over the past year, and what would have to happen to put the bilateral relationship on a “better track”.

“Well, I think if I stand back and look at the relationship,... I note that much of the world has had a more difficult relationship with the US. I mean that may not be a consolation, but that's a reality,” Jaishankar said. He said one of the issues facing India-US ties was the trade negotiations.

Pointing to the “stakes” and “complexity” involved, Jaishankar said, “Bear in mind, India is a society of small producers, small agriculture producers, small factories. Apart from the per capita gap between India and the United States, the nature of production, nature of society is very different.”

“A trade negotiation required a certain amount of ... patience and detailing to see it through… The expectation that it could rapidly move forward, I think, was tested against a ground reality which was much more complex,” he said.

Jaishankar added that “today, we have reached a situation where there is more or less an understanding on the trade agreement”. India and the US had in February announced the finalisation of the framework for the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement. However, changes in the US tariff landscape have led to further negotiations on the pact.

The US Supreme Court had earlier struck down US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs imposed under emergency powers, prompting Washington to adopt a different tariff framework. In July, the US imposed an additional 10 per cent tariff on imports from India under Section 301 of the Trade Act, following a probe into India's measures concerning goods produced with ‘forced labour’.

The two sides have since continued negotiations on their bilateral trade agreement amid the changes in the US tariff regime.

Jaishankar, alluding to comments by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, said the issue now was what had changed on the American side and how the new Section 301 process would affect the agreement.

“The 301 process is still in the works, it's still unfolding. So the issue for us is at what point do you close out an agreement which is very, very far advanced,” Jaishankar said.

“But the period that it took to reach it, that did create bumps last year for the relationship. So presumably, if that agreement is closed out, that would be one point which would contribute to a better relationship,” he said. Jaishankar also said that, to some extent, bilateral ties were impacted and influenced by developments within the US. “For many years mobility was seen as an economic gain. Now, today the economics of mobility and the politics of mobility are at odds with each other,” he said. He said foreign policy or diplomacy today was not just conducted by states, leaders, ministers or diplomats. “In a social media era, there is a very big public opinion factor,” particularly how it plays out in democratic societies, he said.