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HomeOpinionCan China & India's bilateral talks overcome current conflict and competition?

Can China & India’s bilateral talks overcome current conflict and competition?

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The ‘informal meeting’ does not necessarily lead to a joint statement at Wuhan, but the primary risk here is if the expectations are high and the actual deliverables insignificant.

In a surprise development, the leaders of the most populous countries in the world — India and China — will have an “informal meeting” in the Chinese city of Wuhan this weekend.

This did not come out of the blue. Preparations for this had begun several months earlier.

The decision came after a series of meetings following the 73-day Doklam standoff between border patrols at the India-Bhutan-China trijunction last year. China foreign minister Wang Yi visited in late 2017. National security adviser Ajit Kumar Doval met Chinese state councillor Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in 2017. The new foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, visited Beijing in February this year, after which a circular was issued to officials in India to scale down contacts with the Tibetan diaspora. The two countries’ commerce ministers met at New Delhi last month, followed by the strategic and economic dialogue, and Doval’s visit. On 22 April, foreign ministers Sushma Swaraj and Wang Yi met in Beijing too.

The Modi-Xi meeting will focus on “bilateral and international matters from an over-arching and long-term perspective with the objective of enhancing mutual communication at the level of leaders”, said the government.

The meeting acquires significance given the acrimonious exchanges between India and China last year. Will the leaders be able to overcome the conflict and competition that have engulfed bilateral relations in the recent past?

At stake are India and China’s standing in the international system, and the health of bilateral relations. With China and India poised to be the largest and third largest economies in the world, respectively, bilateral relations cannot drift into a spiral of mutual suspicion and innuendos.

At the international level, both India and China defend globalisation for market access, investments and technology transfers. The speeches by both leaders at Davos and coordination at G-20 meetings allude to their position on opposing trade protectionism, although, at the bilateral level, each is chary of opening their markets completely to each other.

Given United States President Trump’s revocation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal and climate change proposals as well as Brexit, there is much at stake for China and India in this shrinking global space. The recent Syrian missile strikes led to a spike in energy prices from about $50 a barrel to an estimated $80 per barrel this year. As the second and third largest consumers of energy resources, China and India need to come together to address this existential challenge to their growth rates.

At the bilateral level, India and China are beset with an unresolved territorial dispute that at times threatens border stability and bilateral relations, as reflected in the Depsang, Chumar and Doklam incidents. India is also concerned with continued Chinese nuclear and ballistic missile/technology transfers to Pakistan, and China’s role in Nepal, Sri Lanka and tthe Maldives. India has expressed its concern on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that passes through Indian-claimed Kashmir. Likewise, the Chinese express concern about the US-India relationship and the ‘Quadrilateral (a group involving India, US, Japan and Australia)’. The Dalai Lama as well as the Tibetan diaspora in India also attract negative coverage in China.

While Modi and Xi may not address all the abovementioned issues at Wuhan, the pressures and risks are rising.

The “informal meeting” will not necessarily lead to a joint statement at Wuhan; the primary risk here is if the expectations are high and the actual deliverables insignificant — as has always been the case in the history of the bilateral relationship between India and China. The euphoria generated at this meeting may result in disappointments or even counter-measures. The 1950s Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai, for instance led to the border clashes of 1962. The 1988 “reset” of relations following Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing and his famous handshake with Deng Xiaoping led to mounting trade deficits for India without a resolution to bilateral problems. Mutual trust levels are also at their lowest.

The Wuhan meeting is also an occasion to take stock of the course of the bilateral relations so far. Modi and Xi are likely to evaluate at Wuhan what has been achieved and what needs to be addressed. While India accepted Beijing’s “One China” policy in 1954, China is reluctant to take a position on “One India”, as foreign minister Swaraj pointed out in her first meeting with her counterpart Wang in May 2014.

Fundamental issues of gains and losses, diplomatic reciprocity, the direction of bilateral relations, among others, will be taken note of and acted upon, but the meeting, as such, cannot resolve all the problems that have cropped up since diplomatic relations were established in 1950 and resumed after the 1962 war in 1976. Yet the meeting offers hopes for a clear deliberation on bilateral relations.

Srikanth Kondapalli is a professor of Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

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