Author: Sourabh Gupta, ICAS
The informal summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in late April confirms a noticeable softening of the Modi government’s diplomatic approach towards China. India has exchanged its prior entitlement- and grievance-filled tone for a more constructive one. The meeting reinforced the notion in Beijing’s eyes that Modi is a purposeful interlocutor capable of braving difficult choices in his nation’s interest. Modi, like his predecessors Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has — when an opportunity in bilateral relations presented itself — been quick to pivot from hawk to dove and to unreservedly engage Beijing in good faith.
The Modi–Xi meeting in Wuhan was notable on two counts: for what was agreed upon and (with requisite political will) shall be implemented; and for what the meeting denotes within the broader context of three decades of normalised Chinese–Indian ties.
On near-term deliverables, both leaders issued strategic guidance to their respective militaries to lower the temperature on the frontier. A limited joint patrolling concept that has been successfully piloted at two sensitive points on their disputed boundary is likely to be extended to other disputed areas along the Line of Actual Control. The pressure that both sides had heaped over the past two to three years along their unmarked boundary — pressure that culminated in the standoff last summer at Doklam (ironically one of the few resolved points along their vast Himalayan frontier) — is expected to gradually but perceptively ease over the next few months.
In terms of symbolism, the Wuhan meeting will be primarily remembered as a moment when Chinese and Indian leaders drew a firm line under their recent past and opened a new chapter in Chinese–Indian relations. In this regard, the Xi–Modi summit harks back to two previous meetings of2009 and 2000 respectively.
In October 2009, on the sidelines of an ASEAN-led summit meeting in Hua Hin, Thailand, then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and premier Wen Jiabao drew a line under tensions between the two countries, which had up to that point been bubbling over following a marked uptick in Chinese pressure along the frontier. The proximate trigger had been Beijing displeasure at New Delhi’s flirtation with the Quadrilateral Initiative as well as a foreboding of its pro-American tilt following Washington’s willingness to bend international non-proliferation norms and bestow a civil nuclear deal upon India. With the Chinese reassured in Hua Hin of New Delhi’s fidelity to its policy of strategic autonomy, the two leaders charted a cooperative path ahead, and by October 2013, the two countries had signed a boundary management protocol and exchanged an agreed record of the substantial progress in negotiations to resolve their boundary question.
Earlier, in November 2000, then prime minister Vajpayee’s principal secretary Brajesh Mishra had paid a secret visit to Beijing to circumvent the bitterness that had set in following New Delhi’s caustic accusation that China’s hostility and policies were key drivers of India’s May 1998 nuclear tests. By June 2003, prime minister Vajpayee had paid a landmark visit to Beijing, which set in motion a process that led to the finalisation in April 2005 of political parameters to resolve the longstanding boundary question.
Looking ahead, as Xi and Modi usher in a more amicable period of bilateral relations, there are two key takeaways to glean from the past practice of Chinese–Indian relations writ large.
First, each tightening of Chinese–Indian ties over the past two decades has witnessed an initial focus on repair and on-the-ground stabilisation of the boundary. The leaders have followed this with intensive efforts to narrow the underlying dispute at the negotiating table. The current tightening will likely be no different — although it will have to await Modi’s re-election as well as the rollout of a new negotiating strategy under a savvier Special Representative (who doubles as New Delhi’s China point person and boundary negotiator). It is not a coincidence that both recent worsenings of ties (2006–09 and 2015–17) have been on the watch of ex-Intelligence Bureau functionaries elevated to (and unfit to execute) the role of Special Representative.
Second, New Delhi’s relations with Washington as well as the issue of the sub-continent’s nuclearisation, both civil and military, have never been far from the surface. New Delhi and Washington are approaching the point of qualitatively transforming their defence relations into an interoperable partnership (especially in the eastern Indian Ocean). For its part, Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure export schemes, headlined by its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have rapidly undercut New Delhi’s influence in South Asia.
If the past is a prologue, a constructively minded Chinese–Indian relationship that is well-anchored at the highest level will successfully manage these challenges. Beijing will green-light New Delhi’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group over time. It will learn to live with US–India defence interoperability so long as such operational deepening remains a fundamentally bilateral — not a trilateral or quadrilateral — endeavour. And on the BRI, New Delhi will soften its criticisms and perhaps even borrow a page from its giant neighbour north of the Himalayas on how to catalyse sub-regional connectivity, integration and prosperity.
For the summit’s success, Xi and Modi deserve credit. If they can translate the foundation built there into a durable arrangement on their contested boundary, history will record their contributions generously.
Sourabh Gupta is Senior Fellow at the Institute for China–America Studies in Washington DC.
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