Guest Column
Why this Flurry of Smiles in China-India Ties?
By P S Suryanarayana
![Xi-Modi Xi-Modi](/images/default-source/publication/xi-modi.jpg?sfvrsn=24316f0a_0)
Photo: kremlin.ru
Chinese President Xi Jinping is pursuing his “China Dream” of long-term global leadership by drawing up a grand strategy called the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). His pursuit has gradually caused what I see as his latest India-imperative, because of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dim view of the BRI. India-imperative is China’s geopolitical compulsion for a non-hostile and cordial relationship with India, as far as possible, in words and deeds.
Similarly, Modi has begun to articulate India’s new China-imperative of non-confrontational but candid relations with China as far as feasible. If pursued vigorously over time, these matching initiatives will be conducive to genuine rapprochement between the two Asian neighbours, whose boundary dispute is still far from being settled. For the moment, though, the gain is an improved climate for Sino-Indian dialogue. Both China and India have primary and secondary reasons for seeking such a near-term modus vivendi.
For Xi, the prime driver is his own world-view of establishing China’s connectivity with countries near and far. In his calculus, such connectivity radiates from China and ranges from conventional infrastructure to the digital and other forms of the current Fourth Industrial Revolution.
As in Sherlock Holmes’ inspirational homily to Watson, it is an “elementary” insight that Xi will stand a better chance to achieve his global endeavours if China can have peaceful and stable relations with its three most important neighbours – India, Russia and Japan. This will help Xi in his current and future competition with the United States (US), the lingering global superpower. So, Xi began his charm offensive towards India as far back as in May 2015 when, for the first time, China recognised India as a “major power”.[i]
However, China did not make much headway in humouring India for two reasons. Xi did not accept what he evidently saw as Modi’s assertive demands that China support India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and uphold the Indian view about neighbouring Pakistan, Beijing’s “all-weather strategic partner”, as the source of terror.
Regardless of the merits of the Indian and Chinese arguments on these two issues, Xi found that Modi was willing to risk a major military confrontation with China at Doklam (Dong Lang) in the harsh Himalayan terrain in mid-2017. Bloodless but very tense, the 73-day Sino-Indian standoff erupted over India’s objections to what China saw as its legitimate road connectivity project in that area.
The snowballing crisis was defused through diplomacy involving civilian and military officials on both sides. As a follow-up, Xi palpably decided that he should try to bring India to his side in the emerging global context of Sino-US competition which, if not managed properly by both countries, could spiral out of control. This should explain Xi’s secondary consideration of trying to keep Modi in good humour before India gravitated further towards the US ‘camp’.
For India too, a China-imperative of non-confrontational and cordial relations is very important. Discernibly, Modi’s prime calculation is that India, facing many challenges at home and abroad, can hope to benefit from a far-from-satisfactory but reasonably-stable relationship with China. Towards this end, he has so far reciprocated what he sees as Xi’s post-Doklam overtures towards India.
Modi’s secondary consideration has two dimensions. He can hope to make political capital at home through such stability, if sustained, along the disputed India-China boundary. No less important, too, is his signalling to the US that Delhi desires a modus vivendi with Beijing, despite Xi’s vigorous support for Pakistan, with which India has had a long, contentious relationship.[ii]
Modi’s China-imperative should serve as a wake-up call for US President Donald Trump, who has shown an increasing penchant for dealing with Xi combatively. Trump can either leave Modi to deal with Xi on his own or instead explore a US-India effort to balance China.
Viewed from this big-picture perspective, the strategic content of this new flurry of China-India smiles will be determined over time by a few geopolitical realities that are now slowly emerging.
Three emerging realities are significant, although their course and consequences are unpredictable. These emerging factors are: (1) the development of a more business-like and cordial Sino-Indian engagement; (2) anxieties about a possible global trade war; and (3) the unexplored potential of the Russia-India-China trilateral dialogue growing into a quadrilateral with the participation of the US.
First, the near-term prospects for a more balanced China-India dialogue have been set in motion since the Xi-Modi informal summit in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late April 2018.[iii] Interestingly, a Chinese scholar, Yin Bin, noted that the inherent “fragility” of the generally positive Sino-Indian relationship of the 1950s could be traced to the “heavy reliance on high-level political contacts” between the two sides.[iv] In contrast, Xi has said that his three meetings with Modi so far in 2018 have “provided a top-level design for bilateral ties in a macroscopic perspective and a timely fashion”.[v]
Unsurprisingly, in this emerging context, Chinese State Councillor and Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe struck an upbeat note during his talks with Modi in Delhi on August 21, 2018. Wei said the current relations between the two militaries “have been highlighted by friendly coexistence” under the “guidance” of leaders on both sides.[vi] Modi, too, underscored the “sensitivity and maturity” of the two countries in handling their differences over the unsettled Sino-Indian boundary.[vii]
Second, the latest move to “consolidate” the Sino-Indian “development partnership” will be watched closely during the current uncertainties over global trade. The fresh US-China trade talks, which ended on August 23, have not cleared the air for business as before. Importantly in this context, China and India have already opposed the “trade protectionism” of the US.
Third, could the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral dialogue grow into a quadrilateral mechanism that includes the US? Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that the RIC has already expanded once and became BRICS, a forum consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Additionally, could RIC be enlarged into a new quad with the US included?
The US, India, Japan and Australia have already hinted they will work together as a “quadrilateral” group or ‘Quad’ to reshape the Asian geopolitical and geo-economic order. A different ‘Quad’ consisting of Russia, India, China and the US, while difficult to imagine today, may be a more necessary forum for Asian and global security. The new Sino-Indian cordiality is welcome, in itself, and as a means towards a larger dialogue among the big powers.
P S Suryanarayana is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the South Asia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is the author of Smart Diplomacy: Exploring China-India Synergy (2016). The author’s views are his own and do not represent the official position of RSIS, NTU.
[i] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, Chinese Embassy in India, Joint Statement between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India, 2015/05/28
[ii] It is too early, at this writing, to judge whether China will be able to guide the new Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the Pakistani military to seek genuine rapprochement with India.
[iii] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, China, India reach broad consensus in informal summit, 2018/04/30
[iv] Yin Bin, in China-India Relations: Review and Analysis, Volume 1, Chief Editor: Ye Hailin, Translator: Chen Mirong, Polisher: William White, Social Sciences Academic Press (China) and Paths International Ltd., UK, 2014, pp. 9 and 10
[v] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, Xi says China to boost closer development partnership with India, 2018/07/27
[vi] Ministry of National Defense, People’s Republic of China, China, India vow to strengthen military exchanges, cooperation
[vii] PMINDIA website, Gen. Wei Fenghe, State Councillor and Defence Minister of China calls on PM, 21 Aug, 2018
The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy or the National University of Singapore.
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By Abhijnan Rej, Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation
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Between conformity and innovation: China’s and India’s quest for status as responsible nuclear powers
Review of International Studies, Vol 44, Issue 3, July 2018, pp.482-503
By Nicola Leveringhaus, Lecturer, War Studies, King’s College London, and Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Associate Professor, International Relations of South Asia, University of Oxford.
China and India, as rising powers, have been proactive in seeking status as nuclear responsibles. Since the 1990s they have sought to demonstrate conformity with intersubjectively accepted understandings of nuclear responsibility within the global nuclear order, and have also sought recognition on the basis of particularistic practices of nuclear restraint. This article addresses two puzzles. First, nuclear restraint is at the centre of the pursuit of global nuclear order, so why have China and India not received recognition from influential members of the nuclear order for the full spectrum of their restraint-based behaviours? Second, why do China and India nonetheless persist with these behaviours? We argue that the conferral of status as a nuclear responsible is a politicised process shaped by the interests, values, and perceptions of powerful stakeholder states in the global nuclear order. China’s and India’s innovations are not incorporated into the currently accepted set of responsible nuclear behaviours because, indirectly, they pose a strategic, political, and social challenge to these states. However, China’s and India’s innovations are significant as an insight into their identity-projection and preferred social roles as distinctive rising powers, and as a means of introducing new, if nascent, ideas into non-proliferation practice and governance.
Compiled and sent to you by Centre on Asia and Globalisation and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
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