Atal Bihari Vajpayee sought modus vivendi with China: Jaishankar

New Delhi, Dec 24: "Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee introduced policy corrections that reflected the end of the Cold War and the new global balance", External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said. He noted that the former prime minister "sought a modus vivendi" with China that was based as much on mutual respect as on mutual interest.

 

Where the United States was concerned, former prime minister Vajpayee introduced policy corrections that reflected the end of the Cold War and the new global balance, he said. "At the same time, he kept India’s course steady vis-à-vis Russia despite the turbulence of that era. With China, whether as Foreign Minister or as Prime Minister, he sought a modus vivendi that was based as much on mutual respect as on mutual interest," Jaishankar said.

 

Modus vivendi is an arrangement or agreement that allows conflicting parties to coexist in peace. Jaishankar also said the winds of change are most apparent in the Indo-Pacific and it is there that the diplomatic creativity which Vajpayee inspires should be most strongly applied.

 

“We are looking at a complex set of transformations that are simultaneously underway. The Indo-Pacific is witnessing both multipolarity and rebalancing,” he said in his opening remarks at the Second Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture which was delivered by Michael Fullilove, the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute of Australia.

 

The Indo-Pacific is seeing great power competition as well as “middle power plus” activities, and orthodox politics including territorial differences are in sharper play, side-by-side with currencies of power like connectivity and technology, Jaishankar said. In fact, no other landscape illustrates better the widening of our definition of national security, he said.

 

 

Talking about Vajpayee, Jaishankar said, "If we are to look at the essence of his approach to international relations, it is evident that this focuses on responding effectively to global changes."

 

With Pakistan, Vajpayee strenuously tried to dissuade them from their path of sponsoring cross-border terrorism, he said. “All this, of course, was underpinned by his belief that India must develop deeper strengths at home. This found expression in the exercise of the nuclear option as it did in the economic modernisation that he presided over,” the external affairs minister said.