Rahul Gandhi on Friday said China had dared to violate the Line of Actual Control now because India’s relations with global powers and its neighbours had weakened in the past six years and its economy was at its worst in 50 years.

“Countries are protected not by one particular thing but by a confluence of forces. By a confluence of systems. A country is protected by its foreign relationships, it is protected by its neighbourhood, it is protected by its economy, it is protected by the feeling that its people have. The vision that its people have,” the Congress leader said in a video message.

“And what has happened over the last six years is that in all those areas India has been disturbed and disrupted.”

Rahul had begun by asking why China had chosen this moment in time to act with such aggression. He did not name the Prime Minister in the message released in the morning, but ripped into the propaganda that Narendra Modi has enhanced India’s prestige abroad.

“Our relationship with the outside world used to be with multiple countries. We had a relationship with America, strategic partnership with America I would say. That is very important. We had a relationship with Russia, relationship with Europe. And these countries used to help us manoeuvre in the world,” the Congress leader said. “Today our relationship has become transactional. We have a transactional relationship with the United States. We have disturbed our relationship with the Russians. We have a transactional relationship with Europe.”

Rahul continued: “Now let’s come to our neighbourhood. Earlier Nepal was a friend. Bhutan was a friend. Sri Lanka was a friend. Our neighbourhood, other than Pakistan, was working with India and saw itself as being partnered with India. Today Nepal is angry with us. If you go to Nepal and you speak to the Nepali people, they are furious with what has happened. Sri Lankans have given a port to the Chinese. Maldives is disturbed. Bhutan is disturbed. So we have disrupted our foreign partners, we’ve disrupted our neighbourhood.”

Modi, helped actively by a large section of the media, had succeeded in creating the impression that India was neither recognised nor respected in the world before his arrival in 2014.

The Congress has repeatedly argued that diplomacy requires strategic vision and gravitas, not personalised public shows. Rahul has now gone a step further and said that Modi’s foreign policy had harmed the country.

Since the Chinese aggression, Modi’s personal push to befriend President Xi Jinping and his unofficial summits with the Chinese leader have come under scrutiny.

The video message on China was the first in a series promised by the Congress leader earlier this week when he said he would share his thoughts on “our current affairs, history and crisis clear and accessible for those interested in the truth” because a large section of the news media had been “captured by fascist forces” and was promoting falsehood.

The Indian economy, Rahul said, was “our pride, something that India used to go to the rest of the world and talk about, boast about”.

“Now the worst economic growth in 50 years and no end in sight. Absolute disaster. Unemployment highest in 40-50 years. So our strengths have suddenly become our weaknesses. We told the government, that look, please realise that we are becoming vulnerable. All these things are connected. They’re not separate. When you look at a nation, you have to look at all these factors and you have to act, taking into account all these factors. We told them listen; for God’s sake inject money into the economy. Fire the economy and do it immediately; protect the small and medium businesses. They refused to do it,” he said.

The answer to the question why China had violated the Line of Actual Control now: “Today you have a country which is economically in trouble; in trouble as far as foreign policy is concerned; in trouble with its neighbours; and that’s why the Chinese have decided that this is possibly the best time to act and that is why they have acted.”