Managing China is among Modi’s biggest challenges

Managing China will not be easy for India. But the Modi government certainly should be able to bring a sense of normality to this vital relationship, writes Harsh V Pant

India's prime minister Narendra Modi, right, with the Chinese president Xi Jinping in Ahmadabad, India. Ajit Solanki / AP Photo
Powered by automated translation

The Chinese president came, he saw but did he conquer? The Indian government rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping last week. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, personally welcomed Mr Xi to his home state of Gujarat where pacts were signed for setting up industrial parks for Chinese enterprises to bring in investment, and for establishing sister province-state relations between Guangdong and Gujarat, and between Guangzhou City and Ahmedabad.

Mr Modi was the perfect host, showcasing his home state’s culture for the visiting dignitaries and Mr Xi was the perfect guest, paying tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at the Sabarmati Ashram, and sitting barefoot to work a spinning wheel. Mr Xi’s singer wife, Peng Liyuan, even interacted with Indian students and won their hearts with her easy charm and grace.

But away from the choreography of China-India high diplomacy, more than 200 Chinese soldiers entered disputed territory at the Chumur sector of the northern region of Ladakh and set about building a two-kilometre road, forcing the Indian military to rush in reinforcements. Around the same time, the Chinese objected to an irrigation canal being built at Demchock, about 80km away, and sent hundreds of civilians to protest against the work being done by Indian civilians.

As a consequence, the Chinese president's visit was overshadowed with what was happening at the border. And this has been the persistent narrative about Sino-Indian relations. Despite an attempt by India to focus on the positives in the relationship, China continues to keep the border boiling.

Mr Modi was forced to respond that the two countries needed to resolve the boundary issue quickly, because “respect for each other’s sensitivities and concerns, and peace and stability in our relations and along our borders are essential”. Mr Xi responded that he too was ready to end the row, and repeated Beijing’s stand that the boundary dispute had been left over from history.

China was more magnanimous on economic issues. Mr Xi promised that Indian companies and products – especially those made by the pharmaceutical, farming and fuel industries – would be given greater access to Chinese markets, in a bid to bridge the yawning trade deficit between the two countries. Compared with the $400 million (Dh1.47 billion) that China has invested in India over the past 14 years, it pledged $20 billion for the next five years.

A $6.8 billion deal to establish two industrial parks was also signed.

The visit was not as substantive as many were hoping for. But this is the new normal in Sino-Indian ties. Rhetoric aside, keeping India’s ties with China on an even keel is a challenge for Indian policymakers. And it is here that Mr Modi has an advantage. Beijing views him as a strong leader who can deliver. An early outreach to Mr Modi was, therefore, seen as essential in making sure that Delhi does not gravitate rapidly to an emerging anti-China coalition in the larger Indo-Pacific as the US fashions its strategic rebalance.

Much like Mr Modi, Mr Xi is a strong nationalist leader who has a hardline orientation on security but remains eager to cooperate on economic issues. Mr Modi’s room for diplomatic manoeuvring is considerably greater than that of his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, who was constrained by his lack of political authority and his party’s seeming foreign policy ineptitude.

Where Mr Singh’s Congress Party had been paralysed by an almost irrational fear of offending Chinese sensitivities and in the process ended up jeopardising Delhi’s ties with partners such as Japan and the US, Mr Modi has taken a more confident position since he assumed office.

Where he has openly talked of Chinese “expansionism” and has started taking concrete measures to insulate India from the negative effects of China’s rapid military modernisation, he has also made it clear that he would be going all out to woo Chinese investments into India.

Mr Modi’s energetic diplomacy in his first few months in office seems to have put China on notice that Delhi is not without options in a rapidly evolving global geostrategic context. It has increased India’s strategic space, which Mr Modi should now leverage in his engagement with Beijing.

On Friday, Mr Modi will begin a five-day trip to the United States, where he will try to infuse a new dynamism into Indo-US ties which have been losing momentum for the past several years under a lacklustre Congress government. Also, with the Obama administration consumed by multiple crises in various parts of the world, it has had little time for India.

Mr Modi has already started the process of re-engaging with India’s immediate neighbours and giving a new sense of purpose to India’s ties with like-minded states such as Japan, Australia and Vietnam. India’s China policy will be effective only when India manages to get its other bilateral relationships in order.

Managing China and its unrelenting rise is not going to be easy for India. But the Modi government, with its decisive mandate, certainly should be able to bring a sense of normality to this vital relationship.

Harsh V Pant is a professor of international relations in the d­efence studies department at King’s ­College London