Col R Hariharan
Note:
An analysis of China’s reading of
the pulse of India’s foreign policy changes under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
written on June 13, 2014 titled “China’s reading of India’s foreign policy
trend” is reproduced below. Since then Prime Minister Modi has returned home
after his maiden foreign visit to Bhutan. Modi’s as a relationship building
exercise it may be called a moderately successful visit, considering the
extremely short preparatory time the foreign offices of both countries had.
However, its impact would be watched with interest by both India and China
during the forthcoming border talks between Bhutan and India.
A Global Times article on Modi’s
visit welcomed the visit. And Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has
announced that India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari would be attending the
commemoration ceremony China’s holding at Beijing to celebrate the 60the
Anniversary of the Panchsheel next week.
Modi's
Japanese visit will now be taking place in second half of July due to the
Budget presentation in parliament on July 11.
Obviously,
China seems to be taking the Indian move in Bhutan in its stride. In any case
it is too early to read the Indian Prime Minister’s mind on foreign policy
making. It would be reasonable to do so as its contours emerge in the coming
months.
China’s
reading of India’s foreign policy trend
Col R
Hariharan
The
two-day visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as President Xi Jinping’s
Special Envoy to New Delhi within three weeks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
assuming office underlines China’s keenness, if not anxiety, in building
bridges with the Indian leader who has come to power with a massive personal
mandate.
In spite
of all the flowery rhetoric at play during Wang Yi’s visit, he probably had a
limited agenda to feel the pulse of the new Indian leadership under Narendra
Modi. This is not going to be an easy exercise because Modi has shown he leads
from the front with an assertive style and ruthlessly pursues his objectives.
His campaign style and later his utterances in office have shown his uncanny
ability to spring surprises upon the opposition and the regional satraps.
Prime
Minister Modi spending 45 minutes at his meeting with the Chinese visitor
despite his heavy schedule in the early days of office is significant. It
showed the importance Modi attached to India’s relationship with China and the
wide range of issues that probably figured in the meeting. Chinese leadership
is likely to be pleased with this as the new Indian government has sent a number of confusing signals on
some of China’s key concerns regarding India.
On the
foreign policy front also the “Modi touch” had its effect; two cases in point
were his invitation to the SAARC heads of government to attend his swearing-in
function and the announcement that Bhutan would be the destination of his first
overseas visit. Bhutan has close strategic relations with India and like India
has an ongoing dispute over China’s claims over Bhutanese territory.
Concerns
on core interests
Some of
the actions of the Modi government, even before it completed a month in office,
touch upon some of China’s “core interests” as well as strategic security
concerns. And they have come close on the heels of the visit of the Special
Envoy. These actions give some inkling into the emerging Indian security
perspective on China.
Territorial
integrity: China
could not ignore the presence of Lobsang Sangay, the political head of the
so-called Tibetan government-in-exile, at the prime minister’s oath taking
function. It promptly sent off a demarche to India protesting against the
invitation to Sangay, as it considers any public recognition of the Tibetan
exile set up as an affront to its territorial integrity. Added to this is
Modi’s Facebook entry which said Sangay was “an honourable guest of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)” indicating the possibility of the Tibetan issue
gathering mass at a later date.
Inviolability
of national borders:
There were indications that India would be speeding up infrastructure
development work along its border with China. These were probably deferred as
the Manmohan Singh regime did not want to ruffle China’s sensitivities on this
count.
a. The
Indian Home Ministry has agreed on principle to the setting up of 54 new
Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) border posts along in Arunachal Pradesh with
the likely increase in ITBP strength by 50,000 troops. The increase in border
posts would help improve India’s security posture in this disputed region.
Already raising of an additional mountain strike corps for this region is
underway and a number of advanced landing grounds for air support are also
being added. In the past, the Chinese have been reacting to any
Indian effort to improve the infrastructure in their “claim” territory on the
Northern borders of India.
b. Close on the heels of the report on ITBP came
Indian environment minister Prakash Javadekar’s
indication that faster environmental clearances would be given to
border roads and strategic defence infrastructure projects in border areas
pending with his ministry for long. This would mean the speedier completion of
80 road projects within 100 km from the Line of Actual Control on the Northern
border with China. This region has been the scene of a number of violations by
Chinese troops who had been objecting to improvement of road communication on
the Indian side.
Indian Ocean security: The
Environment Ministry has also cleared a proposal to install a radar station at
Narcondam Island in the Andaman Nicobar Command. This six-year old
proposal would help the armed forces to monitor the reported Chinese activity
in the Coco Island off Myanmar coast, very close to the Northern Andaman. The
Indian Prime Minister plans to visit on July 14 the newly acquired aircraft
carrier INS Vikramaditya to see its capabilities at sea. These do indicate
India’s determination to assert its naval superiority in the Indian Ocean
region, where Chinese navy had been progressively increasing its
presence.
Strategic relations with Japan: At a time when China’s relations with Japan
are turning increasingly confrontational, China would be watching the Indian
Prime Minister’s planned meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on
July 3-4 at Tokyo with concern. Modi would be meeting his Japanese counterpart
even before he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the
BRICS Summit in Brazil later in the month. The significance of Modi’s parley
with Abe at a Summit meet unlike the one with the Chinese leader would not be
missed by the Chinese. More so as Modi enjoys a personal rapport with his
Japanese counterpart which could turn the Summit meet to trigger a few
strategic security initiatives.
Building on the positives for a win-win relationship
Though the
Chinese find these reports difficult to digest as they had been accustomed to
browbeat India in the past, Prime Minister Modi has some positives that could
help them build a win-win relationship.
First is
Narendra Modi’s familiarity with China and, probably admiration for, its
development model. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had visited China three
times. All the visits had productive development agendas. He visited China
twice in his first tenure as chief minister. The first visit in November 2006
was to study the Special Economic Zones while in September 2007, he led a
delegation of Gujarati entrepreneurs to the port city of Dailan, the second
largest container transshipment hub in China. Northeast China. The Gujarat development model including the
huge infrastructure and special economic zones have benefitted from Chinese
experience and expertise can help China in improving its equation with the
Indian Prime Minister.
His visit
to China in 2011 probably secured the unconditional release of 13 diamond
merchants of Gujarat who were jailed in Shenzhen for alleged violation of
customs norms.
Xi
Jinping’s message (conveyed by the Special Envoy) to Prime Minister Modi
praising his leadership and inviting him to “work together to achieve
peaceful cooperation and inclusive development for the benefit of our two
people and in the interest of peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and in
the world" tries to build
upon the existing positives of Modi’s personal equation with China.
Its reaffirmation
of China's positive perception of India's role in the world and expectation and
desire for pursuing bilaterally their development dreams is probably an
indication how Xi would like China-India relations to develop.
Modi’s
warm reciprocation of the Chinese sentiments in his talks with the Special
Envoy emphasizing the potential for greater cooperation and to work for
mutually beneficial trade and investment as economic partners probably reflects
his expectations. The inclusion of plans to energetically engage with China to
further develop strategic and cooperative partnership in the Modi government’s
agenda presented by President Pranabl Mukherjee’s address to the parliament
underlines the importance attached to India’s relationship with China.
Modi’s
economic development plans presented in the agenda and his top ten priorities
to shore up the nation’s economy provide a number of investment and business
opportunities for the Chinese. So till the relationship with the Indian
government is established on a firm footing, China is likely to focus on these
opportunities rather than allowing the negatives to dissipate them.
Given the
elephantine memory of the Chinese and their penchant for focusing on choosing
their initiatives at the tactically advantageous moments, in the near term we
may not see dramatic change on their conduct on the border.
This is
confirmed by Wang Yi’s facile justification of border intrusions in the North
as well as the issue of stapled visas at his press conference in New Delhi.
However, probably the improvement in personal equation of Prime Minister Modi
with Prime Minister Li Keqiang and Xi Jinping in the coming months would
determine the speed and destination of India’s relationship with China.
To
summarise Modi seems to have given sufficient indications to China that while
he is holding out the hand in friendship, he also has a mailed fist on the
other. Chinese leaders would be
factoring it in tailoring their India policy to suit the changed assertive
leadership style of the new Indian government.
Written on
June 13, 2013
Col R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, is a strategic
analyst associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia
Analysis Group. E-Mail: colhari@yahoo.com
Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
Courtesy:
South Asia Analysis Group Paper No. 5727 dated 23-Jun-2014
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/
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