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HomePoliticsSushma, Wang to begin resetting India-China ties by boosting people-to-people exchanges

Sushma, Wang to begin resetting India-China ties by boosting people-to-people exchanges

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The idea of a mechanism to push people-to-people links emerged from the Modi-Xi meeting in Wuhan. China has a similar mechanism with the US.

New Delhi: As India and China prepare to take forward the Wuhan Consensus established between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in April, a new high-level mechanism on people-to-people exchanges is likely to name foreign ministers Sushma Swaraj and Wang Yi as its co-chairs.

The Swaraj-Wang announcement is expected to be made when Chinese vice-foreign minister Kong Xuanyou arrives in Delhi on 5 June, Tuesday, for a preparatory meeting on the Modi-Xi meeting slated for 9 June in Qingdao, on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale will be Kong’s host.

It is also likely that an announcement on the proposed India-China joint project in Afghanistan will be made during Kong’s visit.

But it is a measure of the turbulence in the India-China-US relationship that, in Singapore Saturday, Prime Minister Modi both praised the US idea of the Indo-Pacific – US defence secretary James Mattis recently described India as the “fulcrum” of security in the Indo-Pacific region – as well as sought to exhort China to play by the rules, saying an “Asia of rivalry” would hold all its players back.

But the PM also sought to assuage Beijing.

“India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members (or) as a grouping that seeks to dominate,” Modi said.

Certainly, as Delhi and Beijing recalibrate their positions in the wake of the 72-day standoff on the Doklam plateau last year, they are hoping that cooperative moves on the people-to-people front will create a ballast of its own making.

The India-China high-level mechanism is an idea that emerged from the Wuhan meeting. President Xi pointed out that with the two neighbours together being home to 2.6 billion people, one-third of the world’s population, both countries hardly knew each other.

China has had a similar mechanism in place with the US for some years and the Swaraj-Wang consultations are expected to take a leaf out of that.

More such interactions are being planned.

Also, Jin Liqun, the chairman of the China-led Asian Infrastructure & Investment Bank (AIIB), is expected to be in Mumbai to take forward potential projects the bank can fund in India as well as across the Belt & Road Initiative. A ‘South Asia Expo’ in the southern Chinese city of Yunnan in Kunming province is taking place from 12-18 June.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, a defence ministry spokesman announced last week that a delegation of the People’s Liberation Army’s Western Theatre Command, which is responsible for the India border, will soon visit India.

This is the first time since the Doklam standoff at the India-Bhutan-China trijunction that such a visit will take place.

“Currently, the two sides are in consultation with each other on the upcoming visit to India by the Border Defence Delegation from the Western Theatre Command of the PLA” Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang said.

In Wuhan, Modi and Xi had agreed to issue “strategic guidance” to their respective militaries to ensure peace and tranquility on the borders, including the operationalisation of a hotline between the directors general of military operations (DGMOs) of the two countries.

Delhi has also invited the Chinese minister of public security, Zhao Kezhi, in an effort to look at new ways to deepen engagement in security and counter-terrorism.

Deputy national security adviser Rajinder Khanna, who was recently in Beijing for an SCO meeting, is said to have met Zhao and invited him to Delhi.

But it is the Prime Minister’s visit to the Changi naval base in Singapore, an ally of the US, and his speech praising the US at the Shangri-La Dialogue there, that is the focus of analysts in the region.

“India’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific region – from the shores of Africa to that of the Americas – will be inclusive,” the PM said.

Considering the much-vaunted “reset with China”, it seems as if Delhi’s trust and confidence in the embattled US still remains.

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1 COMMENT

  1. 100 million Chinese travel abroad each year as tourists. It would be good for our economy and the bilateral relationship if 1% of them could come to India.

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