Kharge questions Modi government's China policy

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday targeted the Modi government over reports of Chinese engineers exiting from a manufacturing plant in India and China placing restrictions on export of rare earth magnets, saying the government’s “Chinese guarantee” has no expiry date.

He also questioned the government’s silence on Chinese restrictions on supply of speciality fertilisers.

“Narendramodi ji, According to reports, China has withdrawn its officials from India’s manufacturing sector. Is it not true that the Modi government, which has completely failed on ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, had forgotten Doklam and Galwan and rolled out ‘red carpet’ for Chinese companies and made it easier to issue visas to Chinese citizens so that they could benefit from the PLI scheme?” he asked in a post in Hindi on X.

He was apparently referring to reports of Chinese engineers exiting Foxconn’s iPhone plant in south India.

Claiming that China has imposed strict restrictions on export of rare earth magnets and minerals to India, which are extremely essential for automobiles, EV, defense and high security currency printing, he said, “Is it not true that the Modi government is not taking any action on this and the Chinese officials have not even given official appointment or consent to the delegation of the Indian Automobile Industry?” Noting that China has stopped exporting speciality fertilisers to India in the last two months while continuing to supply to other countries, he said India imports 80 percent of speciality fertilisers from China, and these are important for increasing the yield of fruits, vegetables and other profitable crops.

“Will this not harm our crores of farmers, who are already facing a crisis of Urea and DAP fertilisers?” he asked.

“Your government’s ‘Chinese guarantee’ has no expiry date. You gave a ‘clean chit’ to China five years ago, after the sacrifice of 20 brave soldiers of Galwan. Today China is taking full advantage of it and it seems that we are watching helplessly,” the Congress president further alleged.