At Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative, India and China embarked on informal summits in a bid to reset the button to better understanding free of the fetters of a fraught past. The first summit in 2018 between the two leaders in Wuhan, China, set the ball rolling. A platform had been established for a second summit, this time in Tamil Nadu, India, where the dialogue reached a new high.
Mr Modi, in reference to the Wuhan summit, said: ‘We had decided that we would prudently manage our differences and not let them become disputes, be sensitive to each other’s concerns [andcontributing] to peace and stability in the world.’ The elaborate personal welcome accorded by Mr Modi to President Xi Jinping set the scene at a beach resort in Kovalam, some 30 miles from Chennai, the State capital, for wide-ranging delegation-level talks covering all subjects of mutual concern. Mr Modi, in his opening speech said: ‘The Wuhan spirit has given our relations new momentum and trust. Today, our Chennai Connect will begin a new age in relations between our two countries.’
Replying, President Xi said the Wuhan summit had led to ‘healthy and steady development in bilateral relations, ‘deepened strategic communication, and diverse people to people cultural exchanges.’ The Kovalam delegation talks, economic and trade issues were given pride of place. China accepted that the balance of trade was weighted heavily in its favour, and that Indian goods and services had to be given greater access to the Chinese market. These issues were discussed specifically by Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and China’s Vice-Premier Hu Chan. President Xi briefed Prime Minister Modi on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent visit to Beijing.
The Global Times, mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, which is given to targeting India with abuse switched over to friendly cooing about the country. Such off-and- on dials at the press of a button is possible only in a tightly-controlled one party state. Enthusiasm must be leavened by common sense and reason. Indian and Chinese goals in Asia and the wider world will, no doubt, converge at certain points, but the divergences will remain crucially significant. The international chessboard requires calibrated assessment. China’s maritime activities and claims in the South China Sea are contested by littoral states, notably by Vietnam, a strategic ally with whom India has close defence ties. China claims Taiwan as its territory, which its democratically-elected government robustly refutes, while also laying claim to India’s Arunachal Pradesh.
There is increasing turbulence in the global order which impinges on Indian and Chinese interests. US President Donald Trump, a loose cannon, and hence unpredictable, and much given to imposing arbitrary economic sanctions against perceived American rivals and adversaries. The US and China are presently engaged in a damaging trade war with serious consequences for the global economy, including that of India. It is neither in India’s nor in China’s interest that the Sino-Ameruican confrontation continues, since the two disputants preside over the world’s two largest economies.
In sum, the present Sino-Indian engagement revolves principally round trade and investment; in other spheres it is one of calibrated crisis management. This requires handling more with head than heart. Trite slogans from a largely discredited past of friendship without shared responsibility was a recipe for disaster. While no state should be fettered by the past, to ignore its lessons could invite fresh catastrophe. However, international relations are no zero sum game either. India’s guard must never be lowered irresponsibly as it once was decades ago.
Texas Senator on Chinese threat
Republican Senator Ted Cruz visited Delhi recently to warn Prime Minister Narendra Modi against ‘China (as) the most significant geopolitical threat.’ It was a long way to come since he had met Mr Modi during the Huston road show extravaganza with its cast of thousands. with the ubiquitous President Donald Trump at his side. What prevented Senator Cruz voicing his concerns on China when he had an opportunity to do so in confidence? Only Senator Cruz can provide the answer.
Anyway, he did arrive in Delhi but whether he saw Mr Modi is something we may come know later, if at all. The Hindu newspaper’s Diplomatic Correspondent Suhasini Haidar caught up with him. He told her that the US Senate and House had issued concerns on developments in Kashmir including the reported violations of human rights by Indian agencies in the State. As a member of the Senate Foreign relations Committee, Senator Cruz said: ‘I think the legal question of how Kashmir is treated is for India to determine internally, and it in US’s interest not to intrude on those questions. But at the same time, we hope not to see Kashmir produce a violent military conflict... An escalating conflict with Pakistan makes it harder for India and India’s allies to work together on the pressing priorities we have across Asia and across the world. My trip was envisioned as an Indo-Pacific “friends and allies” tour, and I am very deliberately meeting with some of America’s friends and allies surrounding China from multiple perspectives. I believe that China is the most significant geopolitical threat in this next century, for the US, India and the world.’
His Indian interlocutor was quick to point out that India had never joined any alliance in its post-Independence history and was unlikely to do so now. She drew his attention to the Wuhan and Chennai summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping to reset ties between their two countries, the wisdom self-evident in an increasingly troubled world.
Nothing daunted, Senator Cruz referred to the risks underlying trade with China, mentioning Chinese hi-tech communications company Huawei whose 5G technology remains an attractive proposition for prospective Indian buyers. The Trump administration has banned Huawei as a national security threat. India must make its call in the national interest and not by American alarums. Senator Cruz accepted India’s sovereign right to engage with China, but emphasising the shared democratic values that bound India and the United States in common endeavour.
The reality, alas, punctures this fabled fantasy. America from its inception was a hegemonic state enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Its brutal dominance of its self-defined arc of licence is a record of unrelieved aggrandisement. The following passage penned in 1935 by General Smedly D. Butler, the most decorated US marine commander of his generation encapsulates this shame. ‘I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.. .Looking back on it I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. We Marines operated on three continents.’
Senator Cruz might have been better advised to recall the Nixon-Kissinger administration’s alignment with Mao’s China against ‘democratic’ India in the East Pakistan crisis of 1971. The ensuing India-Pakistan war, ended in a Pakistani rout, and East Pakistan’s metamorphosis into democratic Bangladesh. Threatened Soviet military intervention kept the China-US axis at bay. India achieved its strategic goal - a friendly neighbour on its eastern flank.
Today, US allies, from the Arab Gulf kingdoms to Turkey, Syria and Iran, to go no further, look to Russia as critical balancer to fraying American hegemony. The French paper Liberation highlighted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deft statecraft, his mastery of grand strategy. The global chessboard provides a riveting spectacle. The best, surely, is yet to come.
RIL in record market capitalisation
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s first company to hit a record market capitalisation of Rs 9 lakh crore. Bullish sentiment over the company’s sale deal with the world’s largest oil company Saudi Aramco has been driving the stock over the past few weeks with expectations of RIL’s telecom operations a record high.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT company is the second-most valued in the stock market, having reached a capitalisation of Rs 8.61 lakh crore. Housing Development Finance Corporation ranks third with its market capitalisation around Rs 7 lakh crore.
