China sends a tough message to Hong Kong

Earlier this month, the top authorities in Bejing got to focus on the Hong Kong issue. On November 4, Xi Jinping met Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam in Shanghai where he had gone to inaugurate the Second China International Import Expo (CIIE). Lam gave him a report of the situation in Hong Kong.

According to Xinhua, Xi told her that under her leadership, the Hong Kong SAR government had made great efforts to stabilise and control the situation and improve the social atmosphere. He said that the central government had high trust in her and fully recognised the work of Lam and her management team. 

That, of course, was for public consumption. The actual tough message was relayed to her at a previously unscheduled meeting two days later by Vice-Premier Hang Zheng, the State Council (Cabinet) member in charge of Hong Kong’s affairs, and whose clout comes from the fact that he is also a member of the CPC Politburo’s Standing Committee. Here, Lam was critiqued on the ways she had handled the violence and told in no uncertain terms that she needed to enact the national security law for the territory as per Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law. This is not as easy as it sounds. The passage of such a law, which would prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition and subversion, has been attempted before and failed, and an attempt to do it again is bound to trigger an even greater intensification of the protests.

The Xi and Hang meetings with Lam took place days after the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee closed on October 31. This was followed by a communique that had reiterated the importance of the ‘one country, two systems’ approach towards the ‘peaceful reunification’ of the country. Additionally, it had said that there was a need to “strictly govern the Hong Kong special administrative region and the Macau special administrative region in strict accordance of the constitution and the Basic Law and safeguard the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau.” In line with this, the statement went on to say that there was a need to “establish a sound legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding security in the special administrative regions.”

Briefing the media after the close of the Fourth Plenum, Shen Chunyao, a senior official of the National People’s Congress said that Beijing was planning to revamp the way in which the city’s chief executive and top leaders were appointed and removed, along with taking steps to enhance national security in the region. Beijing would also support a strengthening of the capabilities of the police and begin the process of educating the young with a stronger sense of national identity and patriotism.

But these are the very issues that have proved to be tough to implement in Hong Kong ever since Beijing re-established its sovereignty over the island in 1997. In 2003, the Hong Kong government tried and failed to introduce anti-subversion legislation in the island after mass protests. At the same time, they set aside proposals to bring ‘moral and national education’ into its schools at the instance of Beijing which wanted to strengthen the student's sense of national identity.

In 2014, protests again erupted after Beijing wanted to have Hong Kong citizens elect their leader from a panel of candidates screened by the central government. This led to a 79-day standoff, demanding voting rights for all. Beijing’s proposal was shot down in Hong Kong's legislature, but the selection of the Chief Executive remains limited to an electoral college of 1,200 legislators, most of them pro-Beijing.

The central authorities in China are simply not willing to acknowledge that Hong Kong may want to have something less than full integration with the People's Republic of China. Their inclination is to insist on a greater control of the system. So, it is not surprising that Beijing’s longer term plan for a troubled Hong Kong is to promote its integration into what is called the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

The Greater Bay Area Plan, at whose heart is the new bridge linking Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Macau, was unveiled in February 2019. Its aim is to transform Hong Kong and 10 cities around the Pearl River Delta into a global powerhouse to rival the San Fransisco Bay Area.

Guangdong is, of course, within the PRC's system and Macau has had its own national security law for the past 10 years, but proposals for similar legislation in Hong Kong have been resisted. Beijing is, however, clearly signalling that it will press on in consolidating its authority over Hong Kong, disregarding the views of the protesters.

When the plan was unveiled, the Chinese authorities saw Hong Kong’s ‘one country, two systems’ approach bringing in unique strengths to the plan as a gateway to international finance and investment. Combined with Macau, a tourism destination, and manufacturing centres like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zuhai, Dongguan and other cities of the region, the plan was to shape a Greater Bay Area as a centre for advanced manufacturing, innovation, international shipping, finance and trade.

Now, with over 25 weeks of protest, Hong Kong may well be committing suicide by losing its key attractions as a city of business, one of the great world centres of finance, an aviation and tourism hub with an abundance of managerial and professional talent. In fact, not just Hong Kong, the entire Bay Area dream may also be in a jeopardy if Beijing is unable to finesse the situation.

Tribune November 12, 2019

Nothing strong about it: Given its huge mandate, BJP government should have got us into RCEP and much needed reforms

It is well known in cricket that the only way to take down a powerful team is by a bold, attacking game featuring disciplined bowling and fielding, and aggressive batting. This is a lesson that India should have kept in mind when going into bat at the East Asia Summit where the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was finalised. Instead, it lost its nerve and opted out of the game at the last minute.

The reason for the Indian stand went beyond the claim that Indian interests were not being protected. The prime minister’s statement referring to his conscience and Mahatma Gandhi provides a clue as to why he acted the way he did. It had to do with the BJP government’s policy that privileges the building of its political supremacy, over the need to lead a larger economic transformation of the country.

Politicians cannot be blamed for such considerations, elections are about winning. But there is also a point after winning when there is need to lead – a process that sometimes requires persuading people to endure short-term pain for longer term gain.

Instead of aligning itself with an agreement that could have opened up foreign markets for Indian goods, services and investment we have put up walls to protect an industrial sector that remains unreformed and hence uncompetitive – as well as to preserve the interests of electorally important sectors like farming and small manufacturing, which too are in dire need of reformation.

This is an important moment in global affairs brought on by the great churning taking place because of China. As its economy matures, China is switching to consumption and hence emerging as a major importer. Its firms are moving from the labour intensive model, to producing higher value added products and services. This has led to a steep rise in wages and automation resulting in labour intensive production moving out to rural areas and abroad, mainly the Asean region. This process has now been accelerated by the US-China trade and technology war. Being located within a trade bloc of countries that included China and the Asean, could have made it easier for India to emerge as an exporting powerhouse, something it needs to be if ‘Make in India’ is to work.

There is an argument, of course, that having not carried out the deep reforms that were needed in the last five years, the government had no real option but to throw the game. But, whatever may have been the compulsions of the first term, this time, with its huge mandate, the BJP government could have taken the bit between its teeth, gone into the RCEP and used it to shock the system into much needed reforms. This could have triggered the long-awaited manufacturing revolution whose success, in turn, would have enabled the country to deal with the chronically crisis-ridden agriculture sector.

The problem is that our government has the ability to come up with grand visionary statements, but seems to lack the executive ability to implement policy. The last five years have given us a stirring vision of a New India, dotted with digitally connected Smart Cities and humming factories churning out goods for the country and the world. The reality has been somewhat more tawdry.

His supporters have hailed the prime minister for being “strong” and “decisive” and say that the stand on RCEP was very much part of this aspect of his personality. But making “strong demands” of the RCEP 15, as the Union commerce minister says India did, is not the issue. What was needed was the “strong” position the country ought to have been in while negotiating the RCEP.

What kind of credibility India’s Act East or Indo-Pacific policy will have while remaining outside its principal trading bloc remains to be seen. What is evident, however, is that leave alone being a global player, we have shown that we are not even capable of playing in the regional league.

Times of India November 9, 2019

In Anti-Terror Fight, India & Uzbekistan Must Strengthen Ties

Ever since the talk of a US pullout from Afghanistan gained ground, India has been paying greater attention to Central Asia. This manifested through the growing exchange of visits between Indian and leaders of the Central Asian republics, and India stepping up its aid commitments to the region.

This week, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited Uzbekistan, the first such visit in 15 years. As far as visits go, Rajnath Singh’s visit appears to be fairly routine, but it does mark a period of enhanced ties between New Delhi and Tashkent. Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s biggest military power and the country has also inherited important defence industrial assets such as the factory producing Il-76 transport jets, which the Indian Air Force also uses.

Rajnath Singh signed three MoUs to enhance cooperation in military medicine and military education and training fields, and held bilateral consultations with his counterpart, Major General Bakhodir Kurbanov. Thereafter, both ministers presided over the inauguration of the first joint military exercise ‘Dustlik 2019’, which begins today, 4 November, and will continue till 13 November at the Chirchiq Training area near Tashkent. India also extended a USD 40 million line of credit for the procurement of goods and services from India.

Much Dynamism Has Entered Uzbekistan’s World View

A great deal of dynamism has come into Uzbekistan’s world view, following the ascension of Shavkat Mirziyoyev to the office of President following the death of its longtime dictator and President Islam Karimov in 2016.

Mirziyoyev ended the isolationist policies of his predecessor, and has inaugurated a phase of engagement and the opening up of his country.

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He paid a state visit to India a year ago in 2018, where a range of agreements and MoUs were signed. India also extended a USD 200 million line of credit for affordable housing. A few months later, in January 2019, Mirziyoyev was the guest of honour at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

The then Defence Minister Abdusalam Azizov was part of Mirziyoyev’s delegation in 2018. Subsequently, the Indian Defence Secretary visited Uzbekistan in March 2019, and the two sides held the first meeting of a Joint Working Group on Defence Cooperation in February, and the first defence industry workshop in Tashkent in September 2019.

Also Read : Uzbekistan Offers to Mediate Afghanistan-Taliban Peace Talks

Uzbekistan’s Tough Stance on Taliban

Uzbekistan’s strategic location vis-à-vis Afghanistan is obvious from the fact that it was through the Friendship Bridge in Termez that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was launched in 1979, and it was by the same bridge, that the Soviet forces returned ten years later in 1989. Termez was also the southernmost point of the Northern Distribution Network that the US created in 2009 to bypass the Pakistani stranglehold on supplies for its forces in Afghanistan. Its airbase was the main support base for German and Dutch forces operating with the ISAF in Afghanistan.

Under President Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan took a tough anti-Taliban stand, and it is no coincidence that among the most radical of Islamist forces allied to the al-Qaeda was the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

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Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia and borders all of them. Along with Liechtenstein, it is considered a doubly landlocked country, because its Central Asian neighbours also happen to be landlocked. For this reason its leadership is eager to promote greater connectivity with the outside world.

In 2018, on the eve of  Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Oman and that of President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to New Delhi, New Delhi acceded to the Agreement on the Establishment of an International Transport and Transit Corridor between Iran, Oman, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Ashgabat Agreement).

Uzbekistan Understands the Importance of Counter-Terrorism Cooperation

The country pushing India to sign the agreement was Uzbekistan, which is keen to join the connectivity schemes that India is pushing — the International North South Transportation Corridor, and the railroad from Chabahar to Zahedan, which could be extended to Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Uzbekistan, for its part, has built a railroad connecting Termez, on the border with Afghanistan to Mazar-e-Sharif.

In 2015, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the construction of a 650 km highway to link Gwadar with Termez, via Chaman and Kandahar. Nothing seems to have come of this project as yet.

The uncertain situation in Afghanistan has injected some urgency into India’s Central Asian policy.

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It may be recalled that following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 1996, India began providing assistance to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the ethnic Tajik who led the Northern Alliance against the Islamist group. The aid came through Dushanbe and went to Farkhor, at a base maintained by the Indian intelligence services, which was on the border between Tajikstan and Afghanistan. A vital component of the aid was the military hospital at Farkhor, which treated the Alliance’s war-wounded. Massoud, who was injured in an al-Qaeda attack on 9/11, died in this facility after he was rushed there.

Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are important from the point of view of Afghanistan.

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But the latter is more important in a larger perspective. It is more populous and developed. The SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is headquartered in Tashkent, and because of the IMU, Uzbekistan understands the importance of counter-terrorism cooperation.

The Quint November 5, 2019

WORLD China's Communist Party Plenum Signals Tougher Line on Hong Kong, Avoids US Trade Wars

The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee had its fourth plenary session last week between October 28 and 29.

A six-line statement put out in Xinhua at the beginning of the meeting said that the General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a work report to the Politburo on a draft document “to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and advance the modernisation of China’s system and capacity for governance.”

In the Chinese political system, fourth plenums usually discuss specific subjects and this one has dealt with strengthening the the Communist Party of China’s capacity, organisation and political discipline.

At its conclusion, the plenum issued a communique on Thursday which celebrated the advantages of the PRC’s system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, spoke of the need for the CPC to lead China and of doubling down on the expansion of the Party’s role in the economy.

Besides a strong endorsement of the Party leadership under Xi, the communique also signalled a tougher line on Hong Kong. It spoke of the importance of the “one country, two systems” approach and the need “for a peaceful reunification of the motherland.”

It said that the Hong Kong authorities must “strictly govern Hong Kong special administrative region…and establish a sound legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security in the special administrative regions.”

There were expectations that the plenum would take up economic issues such as the trade war with the US or the preparations for the 14th Five Year Plan. But it seems that the CPC is now focused on shoring up internal unity and the need to enhance the capacity to the party to control the country and provide it leadership.

Early last year, an article in New York Times cited a speech of Xi where he said that “from ancient times to the present, whenever great powers have collapsed or decayed, a common cause has been the loss of central authority. “ The lesson for the CPC is obvious, it needs to stay united and strong, else it will collapse, taking China with it.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters

Having centralised power to an unprecedented degree, even by CPC standards, Xi cannot now easily escape the blame for a range of issues from the economic slow down, the mis-handling of Hong Kong and even the price of pork, which is now 50% higher than it was a year ago because of an outbreak of disease that has affected the pig population in the country.

But perhaps the most challenging issue China confronts is the trade war with the United States which has now morphed into a larger Cold War. Earlier in October, the US and China said they had been able to finally reach an interim Phase I deal that allowed President Trump to say that he would stall a tariff increase that would have had the US raise tariffs on some $ 250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 30%.

Also read: Suspense Over RCEP Deal Continues as Countries Grapple With India’s Fresh Demands

Now, however, there are doubts about the agreement, which came after 13 rounds of negotiations. Trump has mooted it as a  major relief to US farmers since, according to him, the Chinese would buy anywhere up to $ 40-50 billion of US agricultural products.

But Beijing is resisting any hurried purchase. Its domestic market may not be able to digest a huge ingestion of US farm products in a limited period of time. Further, the decimation of some 40% of China’s pig population because of disease, has reduced the demand for soya beans which constituted 70% of China’s agricultural imports from the US before the trade war.

But the issue is no longer trade, which has been overshadowed by a clutch of other problems, such as forced technology transfer, differential treatment of domestic and foreign firms, restrictions in areas of investment, such as financial services and security. Beyond this are concerns over the illegal acquisition and even theft of technology by China through espionage and its diaspora.

To an extent, the Chinese have been responding to US pressure here. In an October 14 meeting, the State Council (China’s Cabinet) put forward guidelines to create a “fair, transparent and predictable” business environment for foreign enterprises.

According to Wang Shouwen, vice commerce minister who briefed the media after the meeting, China will eliminate all restrictions on foreign investments not there in the negative lists. Further, it will “neither explicitly, nor implicitly” force foreign investors and companies to transfer technologies.

He also said that China would move faster to open up the financial industry by eliminating all restrictions on the scope of business for foreign banks, securities companies and fund managers. The goal is to provide policies that will ensure that domestic and foreign players have a level playing field.

The problem is that the Chinese system – where the Communist Party runs the courts, the regulators and the executive – finds it difficult to give a fair shake to foreign investors.

The American approach was recently summed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a major speech at the the Hudson Institute’s Hermann Kahn Award Gala in New York. His October 30 speech, he said, was the first in a series that would focus on “The China Challenge” in the coming months.

Also read: At Each Other’s Throats, US and China Defy Pragmatism and Compromise

After outlining all the bad things the CPC-led China was doing, Pompeo said that the US wanted a prosperous China that is at peace with its own people and neighbours, a China where business is transacted “on a fair set of reciprocal terms that we all know and understand,” a liberal China that respects the basic human rights of its own people.

At the end of the day, it would appear that what the US is demanding is that China transform its economic system to mirror that of the developed world, but that cannot happen unless China also abandons the rule of the Communist Party.

There is nothing to indicate that the CPC is ready to go along with this. Repeated speeches of Xi indicate that it is readying for a “protracted war” with the West. The Fourth Plenum outcome has only confirmed this. US leaders like Pompeo and Vice-President Mike Pence have responded in kind.

To this end, under Xi, CPC has strengthened its hold over the Chinese system. At the same time, from the economic point of view, China would prefer to defer or moderate this war because it needs western  technology and knowhow for a quick technological advancement.

China cannot remain an economy producing low-end products for the simple reason, it needs higher wage earners to power its consumption economy. On the other hand, countries like the US have legitimate concerns over the national security implications of having their technology stolen by China and being bested by them on the technology front.

As the Economist recently put it in the context of the Sino-US chip wars: China is destined to catch up, and America is determined to stay ahead.

The Wire November 4, 2019

Families dominate the Lankan election scene

Given the dominance of families in South Asian politics, it is not surprising that the coming Sri Lankan presidential elections pit Gotabaya Rajpaksa, brother of two-term President Mahinda Rajapaksa against Sajith Premdasa, son of Ranasinghe Premdasa, who was assassinated by the LTTE in 1993. Gotabaya represents the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and Premdasa, the United National Party (UNP), but is contesting at the head of the Democratic National Front (DNF). 

As of now, the two are evenly poised and the result could go either way. Premdasa, the erstwhile housing minister and a deputy leader of the UNP, is popular with the rural voters and the minorities, while Gotabaya, who was Defence Minister in the last stages of the civil war against the LTTE, is depending on the undoubted charisma of his brother Mahinda and the strong support of the conservative Buddhist clergy. 

In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena, who had served as a cabinet minister in successive governments of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) headed by Mahinda Rajapaksa, walked across with the bulk of the UPFA to the Opposition to become its presidential candidate. He won the election and appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the United National Party (UNP), as Prime Minister.

By 2018, his relations with Ranil were so frayed that he criticised the Prime Minister for not investigating an alleged assassination plot against the President. Sirisena accused Indian intelligence services for their involvement, but since then, the claim has been denied by New Delhi and the Sri Lankans. Then, in October, he suddenly appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa, now leader of the new SLPP, as Prime Minister and prorogued the Parliament. By his action, Sirisena broke up the coalition that had governed the country and propelled him to power

However, the courts stepped in and suspended Rajapakse's power as PM and ruled that it could not function till its legitimacy was established. On December 15, just about two months after he had been appointed, Rajapaksa resigned. Ranil was reappointed PM and Rajapaksa became the leader of the Opposition. 

A great deal of speculation surrounds the events that led to the exit of Sirisena from Mahinda Rajapaksa’s camp to form a coalition with the UNP to take him on in 2015. India, the US and the UK are alleged to have joined hands to unseat Rajapaksa who had taken his country’s policy uncomfortably closer to China. 

Rajapaksa inaugurated a phase of massive Chinese-funded schemes, such as the Hambantota port, the Mattala international airport in his constituency, as well as the Colombo Port City project. China also invested in a network of highways across the country, such as the Katunayke Expressway and the Southern Expressway. 

But what triggered the alarm was the appearance of a Chinese submarine in the Colombo harbour in October 2014 and a pushback by India. According to reports, submarine Changzheng-2 and warship Chang-

Xing Dao arrived at the port on October 31, 2014, seven weeks after another Chinese submarine, a long-range deployment patrol, had come to the same port, ahead of the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

There were expectations that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government would roll back some of the more controversial Chinese projects in the country. Yet, the opposite happened. Initially, the government suspended the construction work on a $1.4-billion port project off Colombo. But when Sri Lanka defaulted in payments for its $1.12-billion deal for Hambantota, the Chinese did not relax their repayment norms, but took over the port on a 99-year lease. However, Sri Lanka did not permit any more dockings of Chinese submarines. 

Chinese activity has since led to a marked US response. Washington, which has an Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with Colombo since 2007, has been seeking a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that will protect the rights and privileges of US military personnel if they happen to be in Sri Lanka. The US wants to use Sri Lankan ports and airports as temporary logistics hubs to supply US Navy ships in the Indian Ocean and also mark the political presence of the US.

At the same time, India has stepped up its activities in the island and is working with both Japan and the US to moderate Chinese influence. It has made it clear that while it has no objections to Sri Lanka receiving Chinese assistance, it will not accept any developments that militate against its security. 

In fact, this is protected by the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 which says that the two signatories should not allow their territories to be used for activities prejudicial to the unity, integrity and security of the other.  

After losing the 2015 election, Mahinda had initially attacked India for conspiring with other western countries to displace him. But months later, he conceded that he had no evidence and he later visited New Delhi along with his son and met Prime Minister Modi. 

In his first media interaction after filing his candidacy, Gotabaya said that Sri Lanka would maintain a neutral foreign policy and friendly ties with all nations. 

Interestingly, Sajith Premadasa was the minister-in-waiting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 2015 visit to the island, the first in 35 years. 

Whether Gotabaya wins or Sajith, they know they can ignore Indian interests at their own peril. The Nepal experience has shown that geography remains a trump card in South Asian politics.

The Tribune October 30, 2019

Four ‘Cs’ of Chennai summit

Summits and hyperbole are not an unusual combination. And so it was in Chennai, where Modi came up with a Chennai Connect, and Xi went a step further and spoke about the need to ‘hold the rudder and steer the course’ of Sino-Indian relations to ‘a 100-year plan’.

According to a report in Xinhua, this was broken down in six items. First, said Xi, there was need to ‘correctly view each other’s development and enhance strategic mutual trust’. In other words, they should not allow third parties to distort their views of each other and that the two sides needed to work on reinforcing positive views of each other through policies, joint endeavours and cooperation in global forums.

Second, he urged China and India to have ‘timely and effective strategic communication’ which would ‘dispel suspicions and doubts, and properly handle differences and sensitive issues’. Both should ‘prudently deal’ with each other’s core interests and issues that cannot be resolved should be ‘properly managed and controlled’. 

Direct and frequent meetings like the informal summits were the best way of achieving the goals of item one. India should not allow issues connected to the Sino-Pak relationship to derail the positive tenor of its relations, or get too worked up over the periodic Chinese incursions across the Line of Actual Control, or for that matter use the so-called ‘Tibet card’. 

Third, and this really flows from the Doklam incident, ‘the two countries should effectively improve military and security exchanges and cooperation’. The Chinese are aware that suspicions of their motives run deep in the military hierarchy in India. They are therefore keen to directly develop professional relations at all levels of the Indian military through exchanges and joint training activity.

Fourth, having dealt with the issues that cannot be easily resolved and must be managed to the lowest level of conflict and contention, Xi said, that his country was  keen on developing ‘pragmatic cooperation and tightening ties of interests’. This obviously relates to the economic and trade investment issues. In the one clear outcome of the Chennai summit, India and China have created a new economic and trade development  mechanism headed by Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to align their economic development strategies and ‘build a partnership in manufacturing industry’. Xi asked the Indian pharma and IT companies, in particular, to invest in China.

Fifth, the two sides should buttress their new relationship by greater people-to-people exchanges. China sent abroad 127 million tourists in 2018. A significant number of them being directed towards India could boost many local economies.

Sixth, Xi called for India and China to enhance cooperation in international and regional affairs. Besides the United Nations, there was need to step up cooperation in the WTO to protect the interests and rights of developing countries. Xi also saw a positive benefit of Sino-Indian cooperation in multilateral forums like the SCO, Russia-China-India trilateral and called for a ‘China-India plus’ approach of joint cooperation in South, Southeast Asia and Africa. Without mentioning the Belt and Road Initiative, he said such cooperation should lead to better regional connectivity. In addition, the two should help push for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as early as possible.

The Chinese view of international relations is largely hierarchical, emphasising relations with powerful and large countries over those of the smaller. For the present, Beijing understands that there is a vast difference between the comprehensive national power (CNP) of India and China, with the latter’s GDP now nearly five times that of India and its military spending at $250 billion, while India’s remains at $55 billion.

A country like India has the geographical size, economic potential and the population to match, and even overtake, China in the coming decades. In fact, till 1987, the GDP of both countries was almost equal. Given our common, if disputed border, and India’s salience in the Indian Ocean, Beijing cannot but take India seriously. So, besides managing conflict, it feels compelled to develop ‘pragmatic cooperation’.

Prudence demands that the three ‘Cs’ of the relationship—competition, cooperation and conflict—be managed, so as not to affect China’s growth as an economic and military power. This has become all the more important in view of the intensification of the Sino-US competition.

So far, Beijing has kept India engaged, without compromising on its support to Pakistan or giving any concession on its border claims. Its one recent gesture—agreeing to naming Masood Azhar in the 1267 Committee came at the last minute, when it became clear that Modi was surging in the May general election.

China wants to ensure that the fourth ‘C’—containment—is kept at bay. It does not want India to become a formal part of the US-led system which is now gearing itself to slow down, if not block China’s economic and military growth. It knows well that the US-led system in Asia will only have heft and credibility if India participates in it.

So far, New Delhi has insisted that it will maintain a posture of strategic autonomy. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale’s briefing noted, ‘both President Xi and Prime Minister emphasised the importance of both countries having independent and autonomous foreign policy’. But if the gap between the CNP of India and China increases even more, New Delhi may have no option but to revise its outlook.

October 15, 2019