External affairs minister S Jaishankar (File photo)

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar has said the ongoing trade war between the United States and China “may not be such a bad thing” if it results in fairer market access all over the world.

The minister’s remark came in the context of India-China economic relationship, which is in focus as the clock runs down on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations in Singapore.

In an interview on CNA, Jaishankar noted that his country has had friction with China as well, concerning market access.

“I run a massive trade deficit with China. It accounts for more than 50 per cent of my trade deficit,” he said. Jaishankar said he was not arguing that trade deficits are by definition bad or wrong.

“It is whether the trade deficits are outcome of market forces, whether they reflect your competitiveness or whether the trade deficits are the outcome of lack of fair market access. Now, in the case of India for example, again we have a very big pharma industry, we have a big IT business. They are globally successfully …. (but) we have very little business in China,” he noted.

Total India-China bilateral trade in 2017 was around $84 billion, the bulk of the trade being Chinese exports to India.

Asked if the US was trying to use India as part of a containment policy for China, Jaishankar said: “A lot of people who say that, are people who have a Cold War mindset, who have lived through containment, who have practised containment … so they are transposing their terms, their visions, their fears, their past on all of this.”

Modi-Trump meeting likely on UNGA session margins

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump may hold their third meeting of the year in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly session later this month. The two leaders had first met this year in Osaka for the G-20 meet and then at Biarritz in France recently for the G-7 summit.

Modi is expected to be in New York from September 23 to 28 for the UNGA session. Plans are afoot for a day-long visit to Washington DC for a meeting with Trump.

The Modi-Trump meeting will come even as the PM prepares to address the UNGA on September 27, the same day as his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan . Modi will address the UN Secretary General’s climate summit on September 24.

