Any connectivity that clouds territorial integrity acquires strategic connotations: S Jaishankar

United Nations: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday told the UN General Assembly that unviable projects raise debt levels and any connectivity that clouds sovereignty and territorial integrity acquires strategic connotations, especially when it is not a shared endeavour, in a veiled reference to China.

“We are gathered here at a difficult time. The world is yet to recover from the ravages of the Covid pandemic. A war in Ukraine is well into its third year. The conflict in Gaza is acquiring wider ramifications,” Jaishankar said in his address to the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.

Across the Global South, he said, development plans have gone off rails and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets are receding.

“But there is more. Unfair trade practices threaten jobs, just as unviable projects raise debt levels. Any connectivity that clouds sovereignty and territorial integrity acquires strategic connotations, especially when it is not a shared endeavour,” he said, in an apparent reference to China's multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Jaishankar said technology advancements, which have long been a source of hope, are now equally a factor of anxiety.

“Climate events occur with greater intensity and frequency. Food security is as worrisome as health security. In truth, the world stands fractious, polarised and frustrated. Conversations have become difficult, agreements even more so. This is surely not what the founders of the United Nations would have wanted of us,” he said.

The EAM said today, both peace and prosperity are equally endangered, and that is because trust has eroded and processes have broken down.

“Countries have extracted more from the international system than they have put into it, enfeebling it in the process,” he said.