The direction in which the Xi-Modi talks went made it clear that India under the new Prime Minister is willing to be gracious and accommodating only to the extent that it does not harm the country’s interest
When China’s President Xi Jinping advanced his visit to India to be present at Ahmedabad on Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s birthday, political observers lauded it as an additional move by Beijing to woo India for the plan China was drawing for an Asian alliance around itself.
So when Mr Xi left New Delhi and his Indian host refused to commit his Government to the Chinese President’s pet themes like the revival of the maritime Silk Route or to Chinese equipment import without security clearance of its insides, then the Chinese soldiers in Chumar in ladakh came back into Indian territory, there was on the face of it at least a return to status quo in Sino-Indian relations instead of a remarkable turnaround for the better that was forecast.
Mr Xi has added to the apprehension by his message to his Army to get ready for a “regional war”. Was it a veiled threat that, if India did not give up its increased defence and maritime collaboration with Japan or retreat from joint exploration for oil in Vietnam’s islands in the South China Sea, the current incursions on the Sino-Indian borders could escalate.
The key word in the Chinese President’s talk to his Armed Forces was “regional war.” Read in the context of the refusal of the Chinese Army to end the frequent incursions on the Sino-Indian border, certainly the only regional war could be continuing tensions along that line. The goal could very well be to force India to acquiesce to China’s idea of what “peace and tranquility” in the region could mean. Most importantly, China has not taken kindly to the intensity and depth of the relationship that Mr Modi has succeeded in building with his counterpart in Tokyo, Mr Shinze Abe.
As Mr Xi was preparing for the visit and Mr Modi was in Tokyo, the Chinese side must have listed the cards it could play to get India to go along with it. These included the 3,500 kilometre long border in the north and east of India where Mr Modi would like to strike a deal with them. India’s need for financing its trillion-dollar infrastructure over the next five years must have been underlined in the context of Mr Modi’s electoral promise of a huge boost to the economy and creation of 100 million skilled jobs.
The Chinese investment prospects drew immediate comparison with what Japan had stated in the joint statement the two Prime Ministers had issued in Tokyo — only $35 billion against the $100 billion that Beijing was all set to bring to Indian infrastructure.
Mr Xi’s visit was also analysed before the historic event in both New Delhi and Beijing in the context of Mr Modi’s statement in Tokyo. The Indian Prime Minister had expressed concern at the “vistarvad” (territorial expansionism) of “some countries” (read China) that Japan was experiencing at present with Beijing’s claims on Shenkaku island in the East China Sea that Japan owns and posturing to impose it by force.
Beijing reacted at once to Mr Modi’s attack on expansionism and had through its state-owned media cautioned that if anyone had an idea of “creating a front centred on India” against China “it will be a crazy fantasy”, “generated by Tokyo’s anxiety. Despite such warning, Mr Modi and Mr Abe went ahead in Tokyo stating their determination of Japan providing India with “defence technologies” and joint ventures and also participation in India-US naval exercises.
In addition, the Tokyo joint statement had explained the interest of the two countries to keep the “maritime “ routes free (in the context of China’s attempts to dominate them under the guise of renewing the ancient Silk Route and Chinese submarines manoeuvring in the Indian Ocean for over two months early this year and China building up the Honan naval base facing the Indian Ocean).
Among other items in his notebook for the visit, Mr Xi must have listed Indian insistence of getting checked all Chinese crucial equipment imports for bugs that could turn critical if the two countries went back to mutual hostility.
But Mr Xi was also hedging his bets in New Delhi, evaluating his Indian host as a tough bargainer and immensely strengthened by the massive single-party majority that he led his party to last May. The contrast between him and the weak and policy-paralysed Government which a massive electoral disenchantment with the Government that he replaced, would have been deeply analysed in the brief that Mr Xi got.
Not only was the much-hyped $100 billion Chinese investment dumbed down to a mere $20 billion, the range of investment was not mentioned in the joint India-China statement. Compare that to the range of items where the intended Japanese investment of $35 billion would go: “Next generation infrastructure, connectivity, transport systems, smart cities, rejuvenation of the Ganga and other rivers, and manufacturing and clean energy’ — quite a plateful to take India into the vision of the latter half of this century.
The expected $35 billion investment over the five years term should be considered against only $12 billion that has so far come from that country over the last 12 years.
The solidity of achievement of Mr Modi in Tokyo was self-evident when Japan agreed to remove India’s space and defence related entities from the “foreign end user list” — which means there would be no longer restrictions on inflow of these technologies from Japan to India.
In the case of China, Mr Xi was not specific about bridging not only the trust deficit but also the trade deficit that India has been facing with the two way trade of $65 billion hugely in favour of China. Had the land route for trade across Nathu la opened further, India would have been exporting more. But the joint statement with the Chinese was silent on this issue.
The new incumbent at 5 RCR is tough while being gracious to guests. If Mr Xi wasn’t giving up on the border face-off, Mr Modi wouldn’t be giving in either on China’s demand for lifting the scrutiny insistence on Chinese material for power generation and telecom gear.
As Mr Xi wooed Sri lanka and the Maldives with investments directed to needle India and drive new nodal points for the Chinese vision of the maritime Silk Route, just before visiting New Delhi, we had the President of India in Vietnam overseeing Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and its Vietnam counterpart signing agreements for joint exploration for oil in an Vietnamese island that China claims as its own.
The point-counter point diplomacy revealed that Mr Modi is quite adept at what former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal described as a “triangular strategic geometry” as the Asian Century gets crystallised in this half of the 21st century. For Mr Modi, the next card-play in this geometry is his ongoing US visit.