Dragon and Elephant Tango: The US pushes India into the arms of China
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has arrived in India, where he will hold talks on the disputed border between the two countries in the Himalayas. In a short time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China for the SCO summit. The rapprochement between the countries began at the end of last year and is actively continuing against the background of pressure on New Delhi from US President Donald Trump, who imposed duties of 50% against India. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Convergence of positions
"It was a pleasant surprise for China that its main global rival, the United States, joined the fight against Beijing's largest Asian competitor, India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to bring India closer to the United States and freeze relations with China. Trump is pushing India back to China. Efforts to restore ties between Asian giants are gaining momentum," writes The New York Times.
On August 18, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China's special representative for the border between China and India, arrived in New Delhi. This is the first visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister to India in the last three years.
Later this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also visit China for the first time since 2019 as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. The organization's summit will be held from August 31 to September 1 in Tianjin. It is assumed that Modi may hold a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"China and India are neighbors, and the list of areas in which they can cooperate is extensive," the Global Times newspaper notes. At the same time, the publication emphasizes that "Modi's upcoming visit to China is a sign of Washington's inability to involve New Delhi in its strategy of containing Beijing."
The rapprochement between New Delhi and Beijing began last October, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan. Since then, the States have increased the number of official visits and intensified discussions on reducing trade barriers and the movement of people.
The meeting in Kazan was the first face-to-face conversation between the two leaders since the 2019 summit in India, a year before relations between New Delhi and Beijing began to decline due to bloody clashes on the border in the Himalayas.
Following the talks in Russia, the parties reached an agreement on patrolling along the line of actual control and agreed on the withdrawal of troops in two border areas in Eastern Ladakh.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) at the ceremony of joint photographing of the heads of delegations of the BRICS countries within the framework of the XVI BRICS Summit in Kazan
After some time, India and China relaxed visa restrictions, and also began working on restoring direct flights — passenger flights between India and China were suspended after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and border clashes in 2020. According to Bloomberg, the parties intend to officially announce the resumption of flights as early as September at the SCO summit, which opens on August 31.
In the middle of the summer, New Delhi continued its diplomatic steps towards Beijing: the Modi government allowed the issuance of tourist visas to Chinese citizens and made it clear that it was exploring ways to boost trade ties with China, including potential cooperation between the Indian conglomerate Adani Group and the Chinese electric car giant BYD Co.
According to Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal, New Delhi and Beijing are also negotiating the resumption of trade at three border points.
Pressure from the United States
India has begun to attempt to normalize relations with Beijing amid unprecedented pressure from Washington on New Delhi. Indian sources claim that the cooling of relations with the United States occurred after the end of the hot phase of the conflict between India and Pakistan, when Trump categorically stated that it was possible to defuse tensions only through his mediation. In a telephone conversation with the US president, the Indian Prime Minister denied these allegations, which, according to Indian and Western media, provoked the anger of the American leader.
Trump decided to "punish" New Delhi by doubling duties on Indian exports to 50%. The US president explained this by saying that India "directly or indirectly" imports oil from Russia. The American leader probably hoped that the Indian government, like the EU leadership, would decide to conclude a trade deal with the United States on favorable terms for Washington.
However, this provoked the opposite reaction in New Delhi. The Indian authorities, calling Washington's actions unfair and unjustified and promising to take measures to protect national interests, decided to step up their ties with China, which itself is in a state of "trade war" with the United States.
"The sudden split threatens to undermine the longstanding cooperation between the United States and India in areas such as security and technology, which has been largely fueled by a shared desire to contain China's global ambitions," The New York Times said.
As a result, the planned visit of the American delegation to India from August 25 to 29 for the sixth round of trade negotiations, which, according to the original plan, was supposed to end with the signing of an agreement, was canceled.
US President Donald Trump signs a decree imposing duties on foreign imports in the rose garden of the White House in Washington.
Beijing reacted to India's softening stance with cautious optimism, The New York Times reports, as it fears that New Delhi's reorientation "may just be a ploy to hedge against the policies pursued by the Trump administration."
What do the experts think
Alexey Kupriyanov, head of the Center for the Indian Ocean Region of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that the rapprochement between China and India should not be called a thaw, since relations between the countries have not been frozen.
— Moreover, China remains India's second trading partner after the United States. The improvement of relations between Beijing and New Delhi began at the end of last year," the expert recalled in an interview with Izvestia.
According to him, this process has a rather indirect relation to Trump's latest steps.
"It is primarily caused by the decline in Western (primarily American) investments in the Indian economy over recent years, the noticeable lag in Indian industrial development programs behind schedule, and India's desire to diversify sources of investment and technology in the face of international tension and uncertainty associated with the election of Donald Trump," the indologist believes.
Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEMI) In an interview with Izvestia, Vasily Kashin also noted that the process of restoring Sino-Indian relations has not started recently, but continues.
— China uses the inconsistencies and mistakes of American policy to resume economic and political cooperation with India and is ready to make concessions on secondary topics for this. The Chinese have high expectations for Modi's visit to China at the upcoming SCO summit," the Chinese expert points out.
Former Indian Ambassador to China Vijay Gokhale notes that the interests of New Delhi and Beijing still differ in many ways.
"However, China is the most important counterweight to the Trump mess for India and other developing countries as a source of capital and technology, as well as as a partner in the fight against climate change. China has been starting to look more attractive lately," the expert believes.
Experts believe that if Indian officials want to improve relations with China, they will have to do so on Beijing's terms: this means opening India up more widely to Chinese companies and investments, as well as further easing visa restrictions for Chinese businessmen. For example, India has not allowed Chinese automaker BYD to build factories on its territory, and has also banned Chinese apps such as TikTok.
"If India seeks to improve relations with China, China welcomes it. However, Beijing will not make significant concessions or sacrifices for the sake of India's so-called diplomatic position. In particular, China will not compromise its national interests, for example, it will not stop closely supporting Pakistan, which annoys New Delhi the most," concluded Lin Mingwang, an expert on China's relations with South Asia from Fudan University in Shanghai.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
