Half a century of mistrust

THERE is much excitement over the fourth meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and PM this year on the sidelines of next month’s G20 meeting in Argentina. Frequent meetings by themselves indicate a desire of both sides to turn the page over past acrimony. And Sino-Indian ties are brimming with differences. But do meetings resolve the acute mismatch of national interests? In four years as PM, Modi has averaged about four meetings with Xi every year, the same as in previous years. The difference though is in the two-day Wuhan interaction between the two. Rarely do two principals set aside two full days to understand each other’s motives during a critical period of global changes and adjustment.

The results have been trickling in. China began providing hydrological information of the Brahmaputra thus quelling apprehensions of a downstream India being caught unawares by increased flows; India has started exporting basmati rice as partial attempt to close the trade gap; and, the first Joint India-China Training Programme for Afghan diplomats was held recently. These developments can hardly be rated as path-breaking. Clearly there is a major distance to travel.

There are bigger knots to untie such as China blocking India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or New Delhi’s opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative. Their resolution could hold the key for resolving existentialist issues blocking normal Sino-Indian ties — the border dispute and Dalai Lama’s presence in India. But that is without accounting for China’s leaning towards Pakistan and India’s intensity of security ties with the US, both anathemas to the other country. Or, their competition for natural resources and market in third countries. This explains Modi and Xi’s partiality to a gradualist approach that assumes change will come slowly, which is why they have planned another Wuhan-type interaction in India next year. The medium-term approach seems to avoid big-ticket outcomes and instead focus on greater understanding of the other, as they try to emerge as positive factors in the balance of global power.