Congress Poses Four Questions to PM Modi After Xi Meeting, Alleges 'Calibrated Capitulation'

The Congress on Sunday posed four questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his handling of India-China relations and accused him of "calibrated capitulation" to Beijing, a day after his bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In a statement posted on X, Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the nation continues to seek answers on the Prime Minister's approach. There was no immediate response from the government or the BJP to the Congress's claims.

The four questions

Mr. Ramesh first asked whether the Prime Minister's "infamous clean chit" to China on June 19, 2020, had weakened India. He recalled that 20 Indian soldiers made the supreme sacrifice in hand-to-hand combat with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley on the night of June 15-16, 2020 — the first such loss of life on the border in 45 years. Four days later, he said, the Prime Minister told an all-party meeting that neither had anyone entered India's territory nor was anyone present inside it, a statement he said has never been retracted and has greatly weakened India's subsequent negotiating position.

Second, he asked why the Prime Minister had "allowed China's territorial advances in Ladakh and now Arunachal Pradesh", alleging that traditional patrolling and grazing rights across large stretches of Eastern Ladakh had been quietly surrendered. He also cited reports of Chinese encroachment in Arunachal Pradesh, including loss of access to patrolling points and fresh standoffs.

Mr. Ramesh said China's posture on Arunachal Pradesh has only hardened, pointing to the renaming of towns, renewed claims to what Beijing calls "South Tibet", and the 60,000-MW Medog mega-dam on the Brahmaputra's Great Bend, which he said gives China a stranglehold over the water security of India's entire northeast.

Third, he asked why the Prime Minister had allowed a softening of India's position on China's role in supporting Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. He noted that on July 4, 2025, Lt. General Rahul Singh, the Deputy Chief of Army Staff, had publicly spoken of the military establishment's assessment of China's deep and pivotal role in assisting Pakistan during the operation, but that on August 25, 2026, former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Anil Chauhan took a completely different position in a lecture at the VIF, an organisation with which the National Security Adviser has himself been closely associated. He asked whether this was part of a strategy to change the atmospherics ahead of the meeting with Mr. Xi.

Fourth, he asked why the Prime Minister had allowed the trade deficit with China to reach record levels. India's trade deficit with China hit a record $112.6 billion in 2025-26, he said, destroying large sections of Indian industry, especially MSMEs. He added that dependence on China for critical raw materials, manufacturing components and intermediates has reached dangerous levels, and that "Make in India" and "Import from China" have become two sides of the same coin.

"Prime Minister, normalisation of India's relations with China is one thing, but what has been in evidence on your part is calibrated capitulation," Mr. Ramesh said.

The Modi-Xi talks

The Congress leader's remarks came a day after Mr. Modi conveyed to Mr. Xi that peace and tranquillity along the frontier remains an "essential" basis for the development of India-China relations, even as the two leaders welcomed "steady progress" in bilateral ties.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the two leaders, in their talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, reaffirmed that both countries should take a strategic and long-term perspective of their ties and that differences should not become disputes.

On the economic front, the MEA said Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi underlined the need to address each other's concerns, including structural trade imbalance and supply chain issues, and the facilitation of meaningful and predictable market access. The two leaders also expressed commitment to a "fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable" resolution of the boundary question, proceeding from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of both sides.

Mr. Xi's visit to India came on the heels of several high-level exchanges, including the Special Representative dialogue in Beijing between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, even as lingering concerns remain over aggressive Chinese military posturing along the Arunachal Pradesh sector.

Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi had held wide-ranging talks on August 31 last year on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin. In recent months, the two sides have taken a series of measures to rebuild their relationship after it came under severe strain following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020. After more than four years of frosty ties over the eastern Ladakh military standoff, India and China began to repair relations following a meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi in the Russian city of Kazan in October 2024, which took place after the face-off ended.