By Dr Satish Misra
Two days long second informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the ancient town of Mamallapuram near Chennai in Tamil Nadu, after their first at Wuhan in China on 28 April 2018, ended on Saturday- 12 October 2019- on a promising note if media reports are correct and are taken on face value.
Notwithstanding the concrete progress and outcomes of the two summits, the decision of the top leadership of the two countries to continue with informal summits is a good step because communication and understanding at the political level is significant to maintain the momentum of any developing relationship.
Expressing a hope, Modi said the summit would usher in “a new era” in ties that had seen “increased stability and fresh momentum” after the first summit between him and the Chinese President in Wuhan last year and went on to add that the Chennai connect between him and Xi at second informal summit would “begin a new age in relations between our countries.
Xi, after spending six hours in direct discussion with an additional delegation level talks, said bilateral differences should not be allowed to “dilute” the cooperation and the dance of the dragon and the elephant is the only “correct choice” for both sides. “We should carefully handle issues concerning each other’s core interests. We should properly manage and control problems that cannot be solved for the time being”, the Chinese President said in a relatively more revealing observation on the state of relations between world’s two most populous nations that are seeking to address serious issues confronting their respective growth and development.
Xi, according to Chinese media reports, did propose a six-point formula for the continuous development of ties without letting the differences disrupting the relations. First, the Chinese top leader said, the two countries should take a correct view of “each other’s development and enhance strategic trust”.
Laying out a roadmap for pursuing bilateral relations, Xi said that both countries should carry out strategic communication in a timely and effective manner, enhance mutual understanding and cooperation and firmly grasp the general direction of the development of bilateral relations. For that he stressed upon focusing on friendship and cooperation while resolving “suspicions and doubts” and properly handling “differences and sensitive issues”.
In theoretically philosophical terms, words of the two leaders evoke lot of hope along with confidence and trust but in concrete terms the countries through two informal summits have succeeded in arresting the downward journey of the mutual ties that was threatening to derail achievements and progress achieved in recent years.
One of the most contentious issue is the growing trade deficit between the two countries and has remained unaddressed despite repeated requests from India to correct the trade imbalance. At present, India imports US $ 70 billion worth goods while its exports to China are mere US $ 17 billion. It was announced at the summit that a high-level economic and trade dialogue mechanism at the level of finance ministers was being established to address the issue and encourage mutual investments.
Setting up a high-level mechanism is the first step in the right direction but final outcome alone, when it comes because Chinese definition of time is little too wrapped and bit too long, would reveal the utility of the decision arrived at the second summit. Even otherwise, China has no compulsion for resolving the issue speedily or quickly.
On yet another prickly issue of Kashmir, India has claimed that it did not come up in the talks between the two leaders though Xi briefed Modi on his recent talks with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing. Xi-Khan meeting and China’s support to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue had raised serious question marks on the likely outcome of the second summit in India and had dampened hopes lowering the expectations.
Since the scrapping of the special status to the Jammu and Kashmir by the Modi government, relations with Beijing had been uneasy, with a series of statements by Chinese officials on the matter drawing sharp reaction from Delhi. In short, fact that the two leaders did succeed in skirting the issue, is no mean achievement considering that growth stories of both India and China are facing serious challenges.
A close look at the two summits clearly reveals that India has conceded more ground to China through abandoning open support to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama who in the first few years of the Modi regime was being used as a China card.
For example. there has hardly been any progress on boundary talks though Xi did call for “fair and reasonable” solution to the “boundary problem” that is acceptable to both parties based on “Political Guiding Principles Agreement” agreed to by two countries in 2005.
The Chinese leadership is shrewd enough to take into calculation that Modi can ill afford a failure at present a failure on the external front because of the slowing down of economy and that is why Xi came to India for summit from a position of strength.
Thanks to the Ministry of External Affairs excellent media handling, the summit has been projected as a big success and Chinese media for its own domestic reasons as well as a signal to the US has played along presenting the outcomes in a positive light.
The real test of the claims made by the two sides at the summit would be the progress on ground in bilateral relations. It would only be known in the coming months and years because the past tells us that China keeps its long- term objectives in sight while buying peace with big words expressed in complex semantics and offering very little in concessions in reality or in concrete terms.
India has very little option but to play along because external policies of any country are primarily determined primarily by its domestic strengths. The present leadership is confused and has misplaced priorities. It has chosen to destroy the national consensus and has preferred to embark upon a confrontationist course domestically thus weakening the country’s bargaining strength. India-China relations cannot be an exception to this.
(Dr Satish Misra is a Veteran Journalist & Research Associate with Observer Research Foundation)