External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday indicated that India is mediating between Russia and Ukraine to find a way to ensure secure shipping of grains and fertilisers since their uninterrupted supplies are linked to the Global South’s food security. He also shot down a suggestion that India and China, along with others, could come together to revive the World Trade Organization (WTO) without the United States.
Addressing the concluding session of the Kautilya Economic Conclave in the national capital, Jaishankar spoke of India’s recent efforts, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. He said there were a number of conferences held where countries gathered in Russia’s absence, which New Delhi found pointless. In July, after attacks on merchant ships both by Russia and Ukraine, in which Indian sailors were killed and injured, Jaishankar took up the issue with the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine.
The discussions revealed the nature of the ships’ cargoes, and the fact that grain exports had almost come to a halt, he said. The challenge was to de-link shipments of grains and other commodities from energy shipments, he said.
The foreign minister detailed the developments since then. He said Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at the end of August. Jaishankar flew down to Kyiv where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Putin and Modi held further talks during the Brics summit in New Delhi in mid-September, and the discussions are ongoing.
Jaishankar described the situation as tough but important to resolve since constraints on grain, fertiliser and energy exports would disproportionately affect the Global South. He said while India has an interest in resolving the situation, the government has worked hard to diversify its sourcing of energy and fertilisers. India also has a larger responsibility towards the Global South, he said and suggested that a limited resolution was in the works.
At the session, Jaishankar, along with former Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo, discussed how India can remain adaptive – by preserving strategic autonomy, widening partnerships and responding flexibly to a more contested and uncertain global order.
Jaishankar said the international trading system is broken with substantial non-market practices being pursued but not being called out, and these had distorted the market. He said the very people who had invented the trade rules are walking away from those rules.
Yeo, a former Singapore foreign minister, said China and India have identical positions on many issues, and can stand up together to make the WTO work without the US. He suggested shaping regional plurilateral structures. Jaishankar, however, shot it down. He said that India, and the world, “cannot seriously look at the global trading system without the US”, which is a major trading partner and the world’s biggest economy.
Jaishankar termed the suggestion that a few countries come together because the US is the problem an “unviable option”.
Alluding to China’s role, Jaishankar said that besides the US, other countries, too, have also contributed to the distortion in the markets. He pointed to India’s example, which he said has huge trade deficits because of market access restrictions. India has a massive unfavourable balance of trade with China, and has been urging Beijing for better market access.
Yeo, however, blamed the US, which, he pointed out, has stalled the arbitration process at the WTO by not moving on the appointment of judges for WTO tribunals, and this has rendered the body ineffective. He suggested a group of countries could come together and create tribunals for themselves, underlining the importance of a dispute settlement mechanism for predictability in the trading system.
Indicating that India will continue to engage with Washington despite the uncertainties involved, Jaishankar said the US is India’s principal strategic partner with which New Delhi runs its biggest trade account, and it is also a critical defence partner. Emphasising the importance of multi-alignment in the current age of geopolitical flux, Jaishankar said India’s challenge is how it deals with the US, the rise of China, responds to its stable traditional relationship with Russia and explores new possibilities with European countries, where it has concluded negotiations for free trade agreements. Each relationship comes with its challenges and opportunities, which should be weighed judiciously, he said.
Equally, India, as a post-colonial society, has an emotional bond with the Global South and they have expectations that India will stand up for the rights and concerns of the Global South.
The minister also spoke of the benefits to the Indian economy that are set to accrue from the free trade deals it has signed with several countries and blocs, and hopes to sign with the entire Gulf Cooperation and Council.
Jaishankar said the coordination between India’s ministries of external affairs, commerce, finance and other ministries dealing with economic issues “is much tighter than ever before”. He said the record of these ministries in recent months was evidence of how well they had negotiated the volatility arising out of two major conflicts, non-market factors, tariff issues and, earlier, the pandemic.