Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in India on a two-day visit Friday and would hold a summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Xi’s visit in 2014, shortly after PM Modi took charge of the nation in Delhi, is fresh in our memories – mainly the personal rapport the two built on the home turf of Modi in Gujarat. Overall, China and India did not mess up with bilateral relations thereafter, though Doklam happened in 2017 and Indian efforts to checkmate Pakistan failed at UN and other world fora due to the Chinese support to Islamabad. In between, Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of global meets; and it looks like they took the relationships forward, not backward.
Xi Jinping meanwhile rose in stature. He was made President For Life last year, meaning he has the full authority to take matters forward without fearing a backlash or removal from office. In essence, it meant stability for China at its apex, in contrast to the constant sense of instability for those who lead India. PM Modi was, meanwhile, lucky to have got people’s mandate to continue his rule for one more term, a total of 10 years. The confidence levels of both the leaders are bound to have gone up as a result, and this could reflect in their talks in Chennai.
The leaderships of India and China had, some time ago, adopted a policy of setting aside differences for the time being and cooperate in areas where this association is possible. Issues like China’s annexation of Indian territories, large swathes of them along the northern border, remain in cold storage. Having agreed to cooperate, China is smiling ear to ear in recent years as it flooded Indian markets with consumer products and industrial machinery. The result: India’s manufacturing sector took a hit. India, thus, bought peace with China. The spirit of cooperation is now at a high level, though the benefit is largely to the Chinese side. In bilateral trade, too little of Indian products are going to China.
China faces the problem of terrorism in its western provinces, besides separatist tendencies in Hong Kong, but it is still backing Pakistan at UN fora in ways as to protect the anti-India, pro-Kashmiri terror outfits in the Islamic nation. China, though, is being careful not to rub India the wrong way in matters like abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir. All these aspects might figure in the Modi-Xi summit.