Jaishankar engages in brief interaction with his Chinese counterpart at Munich

Jaishankar is currently in Munich, Germany, to attend the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2024 from February 16-18.

Munich: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi engaged in a brief conversation on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. They were seen having a brief interaction when Wang was going off stage and Jaishankar on stage.

Jaishankar is currently in Munich, Germany, to attend the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2024 from February 16-18. Moreover, Jaishankar also met his counterpart from Norway, Espen Barth Eide, on Saturday and had a “big picture chat” with him in Munich, on the sidelines of the ongoing security conference in the German capital.

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He also joined a session on ‘Vishwa Mitra: Bridging the Divide’, which was hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India, a New Delhi-based think tank. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also held a “candid and constructive” discussion with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their meeting at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

According to US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller, the discussion on the sidelines of the summit touched on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship.

Last month, Jaishankar while speaking at an event at IIM Mumbai, regarding his book ‘Why Bharat Matters’, said that global politics is a competitive game and India should not be ‘scared’ of China, and instead of ‘complaining’ should focus on doing better than Beijing. He also said that China being a ‘major economy’ will deploy its resources and as part of competitive politics, try and shape things in its way.

“China is also a neighbouring country and in many ways will, as part of competitive politics, influence these. I don’t think we should be scared of China. I think we should say, okay, global politics is a competitive game. You do your best, and I will do my best,” Jaishankar said.

He added, “China is a major economy. It will deploy resources. It will try and shape things in China’s way. Why should we expect otherwise? But the answer to that is not to complain about what China is doing. The answer is, ‘Okay, you are doing it. Let me do better than that.'”

The MSC 2024 offers a unique opportunity for high-level debates on the world’s most pressing security challenges. Six decades after its foundation by Ewald von Kleist, the MSC has assembled senior decision-makers and thought leaders from around the world for discussions on the most pressing international security concerns in February 2024, according to the conference’s official statement.