Policy Alert #196 | October 18, 2019

The dates were announced late and the meeting was dubbed an informal summit, but on October 11-12, 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met for their second such meeting in Chennai, India. The meeting was President Xi’s first trip abroad since the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1. The first informal summit was held in April 2018 in Wuhan, China, following the tense stand-off between the two rising powers at the disputed border in Doklam in August 2017. While their bilateral ties got a small boost from the face-to-face discussions, a number of issues remain unresolved, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China’s support of Pakistan over the Kashmir dispute at the United Nations Security Council, and the conditions of ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) multilateral trade agreement, which India had delayed joining due to domestic opposition. 

 

CHINA

Prior to the meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi, China hosted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan October 9-10, 2019. In a press release, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the Pakistani delegation “briefed the Chinese side” on the ongoing territorial dispute with India in Jammu and Kashmir, to which “[t]he Chinese side responded that it was paying close attention to the current situation in Jammu & Kashmir and reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left from history, and should be properly and peacefully resolved based on the UN Charter, relevant UN Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation.” The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India opposes as it is planned to run through Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, was also a point of discussion. 

Following the summit with Prime Minister Modi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement that outlined President Xi’s remarks. Of note, Xi recommended that “China and India should practically improve military and security exchanges and cooperation,” and “enhance cooperation in international and regional affairs” through multilateral platforms such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and G20. 

• The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, featured an op-ed by contributor Hua Yisheng that hailed the meeting’s success and the potential for their cooperation to “safeguard the common interests of developing countries and promote the process of multi-polarization and economic globalization”: “The talks between Xi and Modi have enhanced mutual understanding, drawn a beautiful blueprint for China-India relationship development in the future, and injected stability and positive energy to [a] world full of uncertainties.”
• Ahead of the summit, the state-directed China Daily was optimistic about the meeting’s potential given the progress the two leaders have made since the stand-off in Doklam two years ago: “Despite their historical disputes over some sections of their boundaries, which sparked the Doklam standoff in August 2017, Beijing and New Delhi have by and large done a good job preventing such issues from marring the “big picture” of bilateral relations. […] While it remains to be seen what Xi and Modi can accomplish in Chennai, the potential of greater bilateral engagement certainly supports a relationship that is far more positive than one that is just stable.”
• The nationalist Global Times, meanwhile, took aim at critics in India: “People with even a slight political sense know why the US and the West do not want China and India to be close to each other, and why they hope to see a fight between the Chinese dragon and Indian elephant, because the two emerging powers could consume their energies while the West gains strategic benefits. Although some Indian media tend to make impulsive statements from time to time, Indian policymakers have maintained strategic rationality and geopolitical sense.”
• The independent South China Morning Post noted that while India still has not signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the establishment of a high-level economic and trade dialogue mechanism is a step in the right direction: “Putting aside suspicion and building trust through trade, investment and cooperation is the best place to start.”

 

INDIA

On the second day of the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed that the event had launched a “New Era of Cooperation” between the two countries: “We have decided that we would prudently manage our differences without letting them turn into disputes, that we would be sensitive to each others’ concerns and that our relations strive towards World Peace and stability. […] The Wuhan Summit has given a new momentum to our bilateral relations. Today with our Chennai Connect a new era of cooperation has begun in the relations of our two countries.” The Office of the Prime Minister released a summary of the informal discussions held between Modi and Xi, which noted that, “Both agreed that it is important to support and strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system at a time when globally agreed trade practices and norms are being selectively questioned,” and that “[t]hey also agreed on the importance of concluding negotiations for a mutually-beneficial and balanced Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.”

• While the left-leaning Hindu gave the summit good marks, it warned the two governments to keep their relationship bilateral: “India often sees China through the prism of its ties with Pakistan, while China looks constantly for an American role in Indian actions. Both the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the U.S.-India joint Indo-Pacific vision have further derailed bilateral trust. It is thus necessary to remove the worry of ‘third parties’ from the room if New Delhi and Beijing are to move beyond laying the foundations of engagement and building atmospherics to actually resolving the serious issues they have in territorial, economic and strategic areas. Only when they see each other as independent and autonomous decision-makers will the leaders realise their vision of an Asian century where the ‘elephant and dragon’ learn to dance.”
• C. Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and contributing editor on foreign affairs at the liberal Indian Express, instead focused on President Xi’s stop in Nepal following the meeting with Prime Minister Modi: “While Delhi will debate the issues generated by China Nepal Economic Corridor for some time to come, it also needs to pay attention to an equally important dimension of China-Nepal relationship — the deepening of bilateral security cooperation.”
• The liberal Hindustan Times was dubious about references to joint efforts to counter terror activity in the region, “at least until China shows it is willing to ask its all-weather ally Pakistan to tackle this issue decisively.” Still, the Hindustan Times argued: “The biggest take-away from the meeting was the creation of the economic and trade dialogue mechanism as it will allow the two sides to tackle a range of issues of concern, from India’s ballooning trade deficit to the tricky negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement. If nothing else, the two leaders have once again provided some strategic guidance that can help both sides rebalance their ties and get down to addressing the more contentious matters.”
• The center-right Times of India emphasized the shadow of the imbalance in trade and military strength between the two countries that hung over the summit: “While the Indian side may lay a lot of store by sentiment, sentimental evocations of a shared past are unlikely to move China. India must seek to outstrip China in terms of economic growth rates, so that rather than being a vanishing blip in Beijing’s rear view mirror (as is the case now) New Delhi reduces the gap between the two.  Unfortunately, as India’s economy hits the skids, the government is unable to project any comprehensive vision of how to move it forward. As long as this situation continues expect not to be taken too seriously by Beijing, which may continue to throw a few summits our way.”

 

JAPAN

• The Nikkei Asian Review featured an op-ed by Aakriti Bachhawat, researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in which she argued that despite the summit, India appears more interested in strengthening ties with the security “Quad” with Australia, Japan, and the US than moving much closer to China.

 

RUSSIA

• Government-funded RT published an op-ed by Sreeram Chasulia, professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs, that provided a background for the summit.
• State-owned Sputnik News featured an interview with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Distinguished Fellow Sanjaya Baru regarding the roles of Pakistan and the United States in relations between China and India.

 

RPI acknowledges support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its activities.