Daily Times

Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s China visit coincided with the completion of his first year in office. It was no Nixon moment in Indian diplomacy yet there was an element of brilliance in what Modi said in China. To be sure, his many utterances in China represented a timely, courageous and refreshing exercise in facing difficult facts regarding the conduct of peaceful relations between India and China. Modi’s trademark confidence and unusual frankness were clearly visible during his interactions with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

Nations usually turn their domestic identities and ideals into the central template underlying their foreign policy visions. Due to a combination of internal political characteristics it possesses and external strategic actions it undertakes, China’s communist regime has acquired a distinct personality that manifested itself with neither a momentous breakthrough on the longstanding border dispute nor a grand gesture on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council during Modi’s China visit.

For the Modi government, separating geopolitics from economics is proving to be the biggest hurdle in articulating a clear China policy. This point is particularly relevant considering the prospect of a conflict stemming from misunderstandings and misperceptions. That is why Delhi’s signals have been mixed. While pragmatically downplaying historical differences and seeking a future-oriented relationship with Beijing, Modi in his discussions with the Chinese leaders smartly pressed Indian concerns over China’s multi-billion dollar investments plans in Pakistan-held Kashmir as well as the unsustainability of the bilateral trade imbalance in China’s favour.

His visit to Mongolia and South Korea right after China — interpreted as Delhi’s discarding of strategic restraint to enter the game of ‘China containment’ – has generated considerable press comment in India and elsewhere in the region. The logic goes: if President Xi Jinping visited India after his visit to Colombo in September 2014, PM Modi responded likewise by visiting Mongolia after China. Modi’s praise of Mongolia as “the new bright light of democracy” has been interpreted as being directed against China’s dictatorial ways of governing its people. If China has, in the past, extended attractive credit lines to Sri Lanka and Nepal, Modi has also announced a credit line of one billion dollars for Mongolia. Whatever the reality, nobody can provide direct insight into Modi’s strategic thinking except Modi himself, who still remains an enigmatic figure. There is least doubt that Modi has the space for strategic maneuvering to deal with China from a position of strength. But when one asks 10 scholars to define Modi’s so-called ‘containment’ strategy, one is most likely to get 10 answers. The manner in which he mixed culture, realpolitik, trade and development in his speeches in China, Mongolia and South Korea has intrigued experts and amateurs alike.

During his first year in office, Narendra Modi’s focus remained on improving relations with neighbouring countries as well as finding common ground for cooperation with great powers. His central dilemma remains the pressing need to adapt India’s foreign policy to “an unpredictable and complex environment of shifting equations” while at the same time giving the impression to his core constituencies at home that nothing fundamentally has changed as far as country’s sovereignty and diplomatic autonomy are concerned. There has always existed considerable sensitivity to the issue of foreigners making demands on India that impinge on its sovereignty. How Modi will attract Chinese money without allowing a Chinese stranglehold on the Indian economy remains to be seen.

For the first time in many years, there was no incursion by Chinese troops into India during this highest-level official trip. Incursion has become a customary feature when either Indian leaders visit China or Chinese leaders visit India, as it last happened when Xi Jinping came to India in 2014. But India’s geopolitical anxieties were again increased when China showed the Indian map without Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh during Modi’s visit. This kind of intimidation only serves to reopen old wounds and bred further cynicism and anger among the large sections of Indians while emboldening professional hawks in the security establishment who want India to stand up to the China threat. Probably that is what Modi wanted to convey when he critically suggested that “China should take a strategic and long-term view of our relations”. Modi knows very well that popular nationalist sentiment in India gets stirred by China’s geopolitical assertiveness and that democratic regimes can ignore them at their own peril.

China’s need for friendship with India is equal to, if not more than, India’s need to cooperate with China. Beijing’s desire to have friendly relations with Delhi is understandable from a geopolitical perspective as well. President Xi Xinping knows that China’s neighbourhood environment is not very favourable; China has 14 countries on its borders and relations with many of them are delicate. Due to Beijing’s unilateral decisions on issues of sovereignty, particularly enforcing an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over contested waters and the continuing territorial disputes over the South China Sea, Beijing’s many neighbours no longer subscribe to the ‘peaceful rise’ rhetoric of China. Thus, pushing India into the US’s arms makes little strategic sense for China. It is in the larger Chinese interest to drive India out of the US’s orbit and to be seen as moving closer towards India.

Any accommodative shift in China’s position on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council could have created an extremely positive atmosphere for the rapprochement between the two countries. But this shift would have necessitated the recalibration of Beijing’s ties with Islamabad as the latter has been vociferous in opposing India’s entry to the Security Council. Beijing is not likely to upset its “all weather friendship” at this juncture to undermine the centrality of Pakistan in China’s geopolitical calculus. Another repulsive factor for China is India’s solidarity with Japan in making a joint bid for the Security Council’s membership. In view of the historical, political and strategic differences between the two countries, China is not likely to endorse Japan’s candidature in the foreseeable future.

The intensification of high-level political discourse must move India and China towards greater consensus. Given his self-confident, assertive attitude in dealing with foreign leaders on an equal footing, it would be unfair to observe that Modi also succumbed to the gravitational pull of China the way India’s first PM, Jawahar Lal Nehru, did.

Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s China visit coincided with the completion of his first year in office. It was no Nixon moment in Indian diplomacy yet there was an element of brilliance in what Modi said in China. To be sure, his many utterances in China represented a timely, courageous and refreshing exercise in facing difficult facts regarding the conduct of peaceful relations between India and China. Modi’s trademark confidence and unusual frankness were clearly visible during his interactions with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

Nations usually turn their domestic identities and ideals into the central template underlying their foreign policy visions. Due to a combination of internal political characteristics it possesses and external strategic actions it undertakes, China’s communist regime has acquired a distinct personality that manifested itself with neither a momentous breakthrough on the longstanding border dispute nor a grand gesture on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council during Modi’s China visit.

For the Modi government, separating geopolitics from economics is proving to be the biggest hurdle in articulating a clear China policy. This point is particularly relevant considering the prospect of a conflict stemming from misunderstandings and misperceptions. That is why Delhi’s signals have been mixed. While pragmatically downplaying historical differences and seeking a future-oriented relationship with Beijing, Modi in his discussions with the Chinese leaders smartly pressed Indian concerns over China’s multi-billion dollar investments plans in Pakistan-held Kashmir as well as the unsustainability of the bilateral trade imbalance in China’s favour.

His visit to Mongolia and South Korea right after China — interpreted as Delhi’s discarding of strategic restraint to enter the game of ‘China containment’ – has generated considerable press comment in India and elsewhere in the region. The logic goes: if President Xi Jinping visited India after his visit to Colombo in September 2014, PM Modi responded likewise by visiting Mongolia after China. Modi’s praise of Mongolia as “the new bright light of democracy” has been interpreted as being directed against China’s dictatorial ways of governing its people. If China has, in the past, extended attractive credit lines to Sri Lanka and Nepal, Modi has also announced a credit line of one billion dollars for Mongolia. Whatever the reality, nobody can provide direct insight into Modi’s strategic thinking except Modi himself, who still remains an enigmatic figure. There is least doubt that Modi has the space for strategic maneuvering to deal with China from a position of strength. But when one asks 10 scholars to define Modi’s so-called ‘containment’ strategy, one is most likely to get 10 answers. The manner in which he mixed culture, realpolitik, trade and development in his speeches in China, Mongolia and South Korea has intrigued experts and amateurs alike.

During his first year in office, Narendra Modi’s focus remained on improving relations with neighbouring countries as well as finding common ground for cooperation with great powers. His central dilemma remains the pressing need to adapt India’s foreign policy to “an unpredictable and complex environment of shifting equations” while at the same time giving the impression to his core constituencies at home that nothing fundamentally has changed as far as country’s sovereignty and diplomatic autonomy are concerned. There has always existed considerable sensitivity to the issue of foreigners making demands on India that impinge on its sovereignty. How Modi will attract Chinese money without allowing a Chinese stranglehold on the Indian economy remains to be seen.

For the first time in many years, there was no incursion by Chinese troops into India during this highest-level official trip. Incursion has become a customary feature when either Indian leaders visit China or Chinese leaders visit India, as it last happened when Xi Jinping came to India in 2014. But India’s geopolitical anxieties were again increased when China showed the Indian map without Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh during Modi’s visit. This kind of intimidation only serves to reopen old wounds and bred further cynicism and anger among the large sections of Indians while emboldening professional hawks in the security establishment who want India to stand up to the China threat. Probably that is what Modi wanted to convey when he critically suggested that “China should take a strategic and long-term view of our relations”. Modi knows very well that popular nationalist sentiment in India gets stirred by China’s geopolitical assertiveness and that democratic regimes can ignore them at their own peril.

China’s need for friendship with India is equal to, if not more than, India’s need to cooperate with China. Beijing’s desire to have friendly relations with Delhi is understandable from a geopolitical perspective as well. President Xi Xinping knows that China’s neighbourhood environment is not very favourable; China has 14 countries on its borders and relations with many of them are delicate. Due to Beijing’s unilateral decisions on issues of sovereignty, particularly enforcing an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over contested waters and the continuing territorial disputes over the South China Sea, Beijing’s many neighbours no longer subscribe to the ‘peaceful rise’ rhetoric of China. Thus, pushing India into the US’s arms makes little strategic sense for China. It is in the larger Chinese interest to drive India out of the US’s orbit and to be seen as moving closer towards India.

Any accommodative shift in China’s position on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council could have created an extremely positive atmosphere for the rapprochement between the two countries. But this shift would have necessitated the recalibration of Beijing’s ties with Islamabad as the latter has been vociferous in opposing India’s entry to the Security Council. Beijing is not likely to upset its “all weather friendship” at this juncture to undermine the centrality of Pakistan in China’s geopolitical calculus. Another repulsive factor for China is India’s solidarity with Japan in making a joint bid for the Security Council’s membership. In view of the historical, political and strategic differences between the two countries, China is not likely to endorse Japan’s candidature in the foreseeable future.

The intensification of high-level political discourse must move India and China towards greater consensus. Given his self-confident, assertive attitude in dealing with foreign leaders on an equal footing, it would be unfair to observe that Modi also succumbed to the gravitational pull of China the way India’s first PM, Jawahar Lal Nehru, did.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies and coordinator at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice in Jodhpur