Modi is not defensive about India’s expanding relationship with America. Nor is he whining about China’s all-weather partnership with Pakistan.
By joining the microblogging site, Weibo, a week before he heads out to China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is persisting with a bold effort to loosen up a relationship that has been in a straitjacket for too long. Last year, when President Xi Jinping came to India, Modi insisted on receiving him first in the capital of his home state, Ahmedabad, and serenaded him on the Sabarmati waterfront.
It is now Xi’s turn to reciprocate. He is hosting the PM in his hometown, Xian, before the formal talks begin in Beijing. Xian is also the ancient capital of China and the focal point of Xi’s signature “one belt, one road” initiative, which seeks to connect, over land, far corners of Eurasia to the Indo-Pacific littoral across the seas. The two leaders will also travel to the Wild Goose Pagoda, which honours Xuanzang, the 7th century Buddhist monk who travelled to India. The PM has often reminded his Chinese interlocutors that Xuanzang had visited Gujarat and spent time in his birthplace, Vadnagar.
Many in Delhi wonder why Modi is so obsessed with these “secondary” cultural issues and not focused on the boundary dispute that has loomed large on India’s relationship with China since the middle of the last century. The traditionalists are right in sensing that Modi is abandoning the old approaches to China. Three broad themes have emerged out of his effort to reframe India’s China relationship.
One is Modi’s determination to widen the basis of the engagement with Beijing. For far too long, small parts of the national security establishment have controlled the narrative, the vocabulary and the agenda of the bilateral relationship. The rest of the Central government, let alone the state governments, business and civil society, has not had any real voice in shaping the very important ties with China.
Having visited China a number of times as chief minister of Gujarat and done business with Chinese industry, Modi is eager to expand India’s commercial connection with that country. While economic engagement with China has steadily grown since the turn of the millennium, India has been a grudging partner.
Modi has recognised that India can’t construct a serious business relationship with China — the world’s second largest economy and a major exporter of capital — by giving the security establishment a veto over economic policy. Whether it is granting business visas or attracting Chinese investments, security fears in Delhi, borne out of the limited border war that the two sides fought in 1962, have often trumped economic common sense.
While security issues and geopolitical challenges from China must be addressed on their own merit, India would be unwise to deny itself the opportunities for more expansive economic cooperation. Compare …continued »
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