Given that Sushma Swaraj’s China trip came days after the US President’s India tour that caused some heartburn in Beijing, one may have expected the Chinese to take hardline positions. Instead, they moderated their views, say KV KESAVAN and VINDU MAI CHOTANI
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s first official visit to China, from February 1 to 3, came on the heels of US President Barack Obama’s India tour that saw a breakthrough in India-US relations after a period of relative stagnation. Notwithstanding China’s reservations on some aspects of the India-US joint statement, Beijing extended exceptional warmth to the Indian Minister and also signalled a nuanced change in its attitude towards India. Going by some of the deliverables that Ms Swaraj brought home, one should credit her maiden visit with considerable success.
Ms Swaraj went to China with many objectives. First, the visit was propelled by the Modi Government to intensify what the Act East Policy. Ms Swaraj had earlier visited countries like Vietnam, Myanmar and South Korea with the same purpose of showing the Modi Government’s deep interest in strengthening India’s ties with Asian countries.
Another purpose was to prepare the groundwork for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to China in May this year. To that end, Ms Swaraj was supposed to allay Beijing’s strategic concerns by assuring the Chinese leadership that India’s increasing proximity to the US was not directed against any third country and that India was firmly committed to an open and inclusive architecture in the Asia-Pacific region.
In China, Ms Swaraj proposed a six-point template for promoting bilateral ties. The template included an action-based approach; broad-based bilateral engagement; identifying new areas of cooperation; expanding strategic communication; fulfilling common aspirations to usher in Asian century and setting up industrial parks and projects in India that would contribute to Mr Modi’s Make in India programme
One of the highlights of the visit was that Chinese President Xi Jinping broke protocol to give an audience to Ms Swaraj. President Xi expressed a strong desire that both countries should “grab the opportunity of the century” by working together with their development strategies.
Both know that the real stumbling block for any major break-through in bilateral ties is the border issue. Even when President Xi visited India in September last year, the intrusions of Chinese forces in ladakh vitiated the atmosphere. While the Chinese side downplayed the incident by saying that such incidents occurred due to the undemarcated border, Prime Minister Modi raised serious concerns over the issue with Mr Xi.
Stressing that peace on the border formed the foundation of the India-China relationship, Mr Modi sought clarifications on the line of Actual Control. It is a fairly long time since the two respective designated official negotiators met to take forward the border negotiations. However, Ms Swaraj was able to get the green signal for holding a fresh round of talks soon , perhaps by the end of the month.
Going by the general mood on both sides not to hand over this unresolved issue to the next generation, there seems to be a sense of urgency in the issue now. This has been corroborated by India’s National Security Adviser and chief negotiator Mr Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who had an advanced meeting in Munich on February 7.
The 18th round of border talks will be Mr Doval’s first official meeting with the Chinese after becoming the National Security Adviser. Both officials were upbeat in stressing the need for pushing forward boundary negotiations and to maintain peace and safety in border areas.
Another important purpose of Ms Swaraj’s visit was to participate in the 13th China-Russia-India trilateral Foreign Ministers’ meeting, and it gave the External Affairs Minister a good opportunity to exchange views with Russia’s Sergey lavrov and China’s Wang Yi on a range of regional and global issues.
That both China and Russia were willing to support India’s admission to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum as well as full membership at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was a major takeaway for India. Significantly, on the important question of India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council, Russia and China only said that they appreciated India’s aspirations to play a greater role in the UN.
Calling for collectively combating terrorism, their joint statement said that religious, racial and ethnic divisions were no justification for terrorism and pledged to crack down on those who financed and gave refuge to terrorists. In sum, Ms Swaraj’s visit has served to highlight a certain degree of moderation in China’s attitude towards India. There is a great deal of expectation from Mr Modi’s visit to China in May. But before that, the border talks, that are going to be held soon, will play a key role in determining the course of events.
(KV Kesavan is a Distinguished Fellow, and Vindu Mai Chotani, a research assistant at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)