Modi- Xi: Building on Ties: RSTV - The Big Picture

Modi- Xi: Building on Ties RSTV –Download PDF Here

Rajya Sabha TV programs like ‘The Big Picture’, ‘In Depth’ and ‘India’s World’ are informative programs that are important for UPSC preparation. In this article, you can read about the discussions held in the ‘Big Picture’ episode on “Modi- Xi: Building on Ties” for the IAS exam.

Anchor: Frank Rausan Pereira

Guests –

TCA Rangachari, Former Ambassador

Alok Bansal, Director, India Foundation

Professor Harsh V Pant, Distinguished Fellow, ORF

Larger Background:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host the Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year (2019) for an informal summit, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement recently.
• “During the first Informal Summit in Wuhan, Chinese President Xi had accepted the invitation of PM Modi to visit India for the next Informal Summit in 2019.
• The two sides are in touch, through diplomatic channels, to finalise the date and venue for the meeting,” the spokesman said.
• Both leaders have met several times over the past year to defuse tensions and bolster trade ties after a military standoff at their high-altitude Himalayan border in 2017 rekindled fears of war between the two Asian nations.
• PM Modi may also hold his first bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump in over two years on the sidelines of the G20 summit in June 2019 in Osaka, Japan.
• This edition of the big picture will analyse the potential and challenges of Sino-India Ties.

Where Sino-Indian bilateral relations stand at the moment:

• If we take the year of 2017 as a departure point, then things have only improved. It has been around 2 years since the Doklam standoff. During the course of these 2 years, there has been a very conscious and a successful effort to attempt at putting the relationship back on rails.
• One witnessed high level visits on both sides, and keeping the present day context in mind, the issues and the challenges in the relationship, are more or less the same as they have been during the first term, and during earlier years as well. The fact is that India and China are two large neighbours, and there is much that these two countries can do with each other for the good.
• At the same time, there is also potential for problems between the two countries, and this is something which wouldn’t be too helpful in so as far as regional stability and peace is concerned, and as far as the overall bilateral relationship is concerned, and therefore, we need to find ways and means in which we can work together.
• An encouraging development from the recent past is the fact that the trade deficit has to an extent, declined. As a matter of fact, it has come down by about 10 Billion dollars. Having said this, if we look at the overall global trade surplus of China, which amounts to around $350 Billion, then virtually 15-16% of that global surplus, comes from the trade with India.
• Thus, we have a long way to go in trying to bring down that deficit.
• Having said that, it is obvious that no country tries to balance the relationship perfectly in the sense that the trade deficit is zero; India’s current trade deficit with China is around 53 Billion dollars, and this is an amount which should be brought down significantly.
• There are other aspects that should be given a push as well. This can be done through initiatives such as people-to-people exchanges, high level dialogues, creating trust, etc. These are some of the elements that were mentioned in the Wuhan Summit as well.
• However, it is important to note that this is a continuing process.
• Here, the Chinese Government as well as the Government of India are both making efforts. This is naturally going to be a slow process, thus we should not expect any quick results.
• However, the signs are positive. What is clearly an encouraging sign is the congratulatory message that has come from Xi Jinping to Narendra Modi in the wake of Modi’s reelection to the office of Prime Minister of India. Apart from this, on the Indian side, there is a great deal of goodwill for China and for India-China relations.
• Thus, things look good while the problems are still pretty much the same as they have been in the 1st term of Modi’s Government.
• What India needs to focus on is her soft power. When we travel into the interiors of China, we find an impact that yoga and Bollywood has had- this has an enormous reach with the people of China. Unlike in India, the average perception of India in the eyes of a Chinese person isn’t negative. Most Chinese have a fairly positive view about India.

Other areas that need special attention in India-China relations:

When the Wuhan summit happened, there were a number of issues on the table, wherein it was deemed important that as far as Sino-Indian relations were concerned, the relationship is taken along a certain path. These issues included:
a) What to do about trade?, i.e. how does one increase the volume of trade as well as how does one decrease the deficit?
b) People-to-people connectivity between India and China
c) What does one do with regards to the neighbourhood and the region? (there was a lot of talk about joint projects, in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, etc. (although nothing substantive has yet materialized).

• It is also important to note that China is under pressure. As a matter of fact, Donald Trump has been putting China under pressure. This pressure has changed the manner in which China is approaching her counterparts. People have attributed the success of the Wuhan Summit to India’s desire to calm the temperatures down in the wake of the Doklam Standoff, however, China also wanted to bring India into its discourse. Thus, one can tap into an opportunity that is being presented at the moment. The fact is that we have reached a unique inflexion point in China’s economic evolution. China is being forced to change track. The kind of trade and technology conflict that is escalating from the west, will have huge repercussions as far as China is concerned both in terms of its economic evolution domestically, as well as its regional engagement.
• As a matter of fact, the pushback that China has got on the BRI is a reality check.

Is the Trade War between the U.S. and China an opportunity for India?

• It is important to note that this is not the first time wherein we have seen a difficulty in Sino-U.S. relations. As a matter of fact, this works in some way to the advantage of India. China, from 1949 onwards till about 1972, sided completely with the Soviet Union. However, post 1972, they became pro-American. This transition happened very quickly. India cannot afford to do this. Large countries cannot do this because they leave their people very confused in so far as the direction into which the country is heading.
• Both China and the U.S. look upon India as a country with which they would want to have good relations with. Somehow, there is a feeling that if India is on the same side, then it helps in dealing with the third party. The Chinese side keeps reiterating that the commonalities between India and China far outweigh the differences between the two nations. They also mention that the two sides (India and China) should make every effort to ensure that the differences do not turn into disputes. Having said this, there are quite a number of concrete difficulties between the two countries. Unfortunately, these are not easily resolvable. They are not resolvable in the short term in any case.

The 21st Century: A Century for India and China?

• There is no doubt that both India and China are the fastest growing large economies of the world. The global economic balance is also slowly shifting eastwards. Further, U.S. policies in the past few years have been very erratic and knee-jerk in nature. However, the U.S.- China trade war does present India with a major opportunity. The Chinese have started feeling the pressure; however, considering that China’s trade with the U.S. is in jeopardy, the Indian market is a huge option for China which she cannot afford to forego. As far as the boundary dispute between India and China is concerned, a time has come when the two sides should delineate the ‘Line of Actual Control’ so that the type of skirmishes that one witnessed in 2013 and 2014 are avoided.
• For furthering India-China relations, India should explore the possibility of a road link from Karakoram to Kandla; this would grossly mitigate and render irrelevant the significance of the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor).
• We need to also make a concerted effort towards taking our soft power push forward.  
• It is also important to note that after 7 decades of Chinese communist rule, the Chinese tend to view religious institutions and things associated with religions with a lot of suspicion. Thus India’s soft power push of yoga should be done in a planned and organized manner.
• Road links are also a major area where India can take its relations with China forward.

Areas of cooperation for the future between India and China:

• One of the ways in which the leaders of India and China look at the future (especially post Doklam), is to once again go to the early 1990’s model which was to anchor the bilateral relationship in the larger global framework.
• It is important to note that there was a time when strategic experts used to talk about the Russia-China-India trilateral as a means to try and push back against the unipolar movement of America.
• Since then, one has seen an engagement between China and India on global trade issues and on global environmental issues. The two countries (India and China) did come together in the Doha round of trade negotiations, and the Copenhagen negotiations, etc. Currently, the Trump administration’s disregard for the global economic order, or a pushback against that order has brought India and China in some strange way closer to each other.
• There is a lot of potential that can now be explored. India should perhaps anchor its bilateral relationship with China as a part of the global landscape.
• Having said this, it must be acknowledged that China is not going to give up on the bilateral issues.
• In the short to medium term, it is important that certain optimism about the bilateral relationship between India and China is generated.  

Concluding Remarks:

• In order to successfully manage our differences with China on the border, we need to have our border preparations also highly prioritized; for example: roads, housing for people living in border regions, etc. These are all the regions where the government must attach priority to.
• It is hoped that the present Government of India would take very quick and solid action in the course of the coming years. Politically as well, India should be able to ensure greater trust.
• China is under pressure at the moment and it is believed that China would have an opportunity to reach out to India on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Currently, the contentious issues need to be managed at this stage. Their resolution is virtually impossible. India and China should move forward on those issues where they can move forward.
• In conclusion, India must enter into negotiations with the Chinese with a very clear-eyed expectation as to what is achievable and what is not. As India builds her relations with China, she must also build her own strengths as well- whether it is on the border, or economically and financially.
• India must also not give China a “veto” over what she does- therefore, India must pursue a policy of building relations with other countries as well in the neighbourhood, regardless of what China might have to say on the matter. There are engagements which India needs to build in the region across bilateral, trilateral and multilateral frameworks.

Modi- Xi: Building on Ties RSTV –Download PDF Here

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