India’s rise ‘unstoppable’, Jaishankar says after US remarks on economic rivalry

Days after a senior American official said the United States would not allow India to become an economic rival like China, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said on Saturday that India’s rise is “unstoppable” and will be determined solely by the country’s own strengths.

Jaishankar made the remarks during a discussion at the Raisina Dialogue, two days after US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau said at the same forum that Washington would not repeat the mistake of giving India the kind of economic advantages it once extended to China.

“When we speak today about the rise of countries…the rise of countries is determined by the countries. The rise of India will be determined by India,” Jaishankar said during a panel on cooperation among nations in the Indian Ocean region. “It will be determined by our strength, not by the mistakes of others,” he added, without directly naming Landau or the United States.

Jaishankar also noted that the Indian Ocean is the only ocean named after a country because India lies “right in the middle of it”, adding that the country’s growth would act as a “lifting tide” benefiting other nations in the region. “Those who work with us obviously will get more benefits… I’m not saying there are no challenges to India’s rise, there are. But the direction of India’s rise is very clear. In a way, it’s unstoppable,” he said.

Landau, who has served as a diplomat during both terms of US President Donald Trump, earlier said Washington’s “America First” approach means the US will prioritise its own economic interests. While supporting an ongoing trade deal between Washington and New Delhi, Landau said the US would ensure it does not repeat the mistake it believes it made with China two decades ago.

“We are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago… saying we will let you develop all these markets and then, the next thing we know, you are beating us in a lot of commercial things,” he said. Meanwhile, India’s government has also faced criticism after US treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary 30-day waiver from American sanctions allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.

Bessent said the move was intended to stabilise global energy markets and aligned with Trump’s policy of “American energy dominance.”

“The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall, they did… But to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world, we have given them permission to accept the Russian oil,” Bessent told Fox News.

New Delhi has maintained that its energy purchases are driven solely by market conditions and the need to ensure energy security. The government has neither confirmed nor denied claims that it committed to stopping Russian oil imports as part of a bilateral trade deal with the US.

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal criticised Bessent’s remarks, saying terms such as calling India a “good actor” and suggesting Washington had permitted it to buy Russian oil were “patronising.” “Telling us it is a temporary reprieve and that they will revert to strong-arming us… It is like a prisoner on parole,” Sibal wrote on social media, warning that such language could leave long-term diplomatic scars.