Foreign Minister Jaishankar said, China is our super neighbour

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that China is our super neighbour. Describing China as India's biggest neighbour, he said that we need to learn from the progress and progress that China has made.

He was speaking at a lecture organized by the Bharatiya Vichar Manch organized by the Bharatiya Vichar Manch at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on the occasion of the launch of the book translated into Gujarati of the Foreign Minister's book 'The India Way' on Sunday.

He said that we started economic reforms much later than China. China started economic reforms 15 years before us. These economic reforms were very deep and big. Due to this, there is a gap of 15 years in the economic reforms between India and China.

He also said that when Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi went to China in 1988, India and China were on the same economic level, but due to the economic reforms that China took off from there, we were far behind China. China has now become an economy 4 times bigger than India.

He also recognized that India suffered in three important places in 75 years. In this the first partition, the second the delayed economic reforms and the third the delay due to nuclear. The first 15 years due to partition, the second 15 years due to delay in economic reforms and the subsequent 25 years due to delay in the nuclear sector, we have to suffer a lot.

He said that Indian foreign policy has entered a new era since 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited neighbouring countries to the swearing-in ceremony on the very first day itself. This was a strange thought for the foreign policy experts of the time. The Prime Minister challenged the old thinking on the very first day. There was a complete change in the thinking, concept and nature of the foreign policy. We came to know from which side to deal with the world and change is also necessary for it. India has become the fifth largest economy in the world.

Jaishankar said that we should think more about Japan. More than 50 percent of our trade goes east to the Pacific Ocean. To advance your interests, you should keep it together with everyone. We also sometimes need strategic patience in foreign policy. We have to think that the world will define us or we will define the world.

He told the need to see Mahabharata in the context of diplomacy. There is no better story than Mahabharata about diplomacy. There is a similarity in the situation of the world today and in the Mahabharata. Mahabharata has so many lessons and so many examples that we should be proud of.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that he is now an honorary (honourary) Gujarati. He said that 3 years ago he got the opportunity to join Gujarat. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. Hence he considers himself an honorary Gujarati. He said that he had presented his book written in English to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now he will also present its translated book in Gujarati to him.