APART from the faux-pas of a Doordarshan news reader calling President Xi Jinping, ‘Eleven Jinping’ and also that the Gujarat Administration has had to hide its workers from North Eastern India for the duration of the President’s visit, more serious matters merit attention. Xi’s visit has been touted as a major diplomatic score for the NDA Government. But a sharper analysis shows the visit as a major disappointment for Modi’s foreign policy. It was a visit hyped up by a media that focused too much on trivia than on substance. The visit of a head of state of a neighbouring country with whom India has had uneasy ties naturally creates much sensation. It was believed that the Chinese would be announcing $100 billion worth of investments in India, nearly three times the amount pledged by Tokyo during Mr Modi’s recent visit to Japan. But that did not happen. India and China signed 16 bilateral agreements which totaled $30 billion which was not only not three times Japan’s offer, but less than the $35 billion already pledged by Tokyo. The focus of the visit was a five-year trade and economic development plan signed by the two countries’ commerce ministers, under which China committed to investing $20 billion in India over the next five years. Before the visit the talk was that China would invest $20 billion a year over each of the next five years. In addition, China committed to an investment of $6.8 billion in two industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and some 24 Chinese companies entered into agreements with Indian companies that, if and when delivered, would add up to investments of another $3.6 billion. Overall therefore the visit delivered a $30.4 billion agreement and not $100 billion as expected.
What was jarring about Xi Jinping’s visit was the incursions of Chinese troops and civilians into Chumar in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ladakh region, the third such incursion by the PLA in recent weeks. It is difficult to believe that President Xi, was unaware of what was happening, or that he could not have prevented it at a time when India played perfect host. While India and China have differing perceptions of where the Line of Actual Control (LAC) lies between them, and that each patrols in territory claimed by the other side but that the incursions should happen at a time when the Chinese President was on Indian soil is a deliberate signal that the Chinese, apart from being inscrutable are also worldly wise. They know they have a vantage point against India. The latest incursion could be China’s way of countering President Pranab Mukherjee’s Vietnam visit, which concluded with India agreeing to increase its role in exploring offshore oilfields in Vietnamese waters that China disputes. Whatever the reasons, a visit that was projected by the Modi Government as a major foreign policy triumph has ended in a whimper.
