Editorial. There seems little prospect of a thaw in Indo-China ties anytime soon

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly avoided shaking hands with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu at the bilateral on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in New Delhi last week.

The symbolism of that refusal speaks volumes for the present state of ties between India and China, under President Xi Jinping. Even the few misguided Indians who admired China immensely have privately changed their minds after Xi came to power in 2012. Not to put too fine a point on it, the conduct of Xi’s China with all of its neighbours has been appalling, to put it mildly.

It has also been unwise. For, which country in its right mind antagonises all its neighbours at the same time? It’s hard to escape the conclusion that while China has immense economic and (untested) military might, it is led by a leader who fancies that China can displace the US as the global boss in quick time.

He couldn’t be more wrong. The problem is that the ongoing attempt makes China a very dangerous country. . Unfortunately, China is India’s largest and now most belligerent neighbour. India has known since 1950 that it has to deal with it very carefully.

China has immense nuisance value of which India has got a taste several times. Whether it is on the 3,500 kilometre border where China constantly intrudes or at the UN where it supports Pakistani terrorists or vis-a-vis Russia now, who it persuades not to continue with rupee trade, China has replaced Pakistan where the global nuisance quotient is concerned.

And just as then many people tried to “see things from Pakistan’s point of view”, now there are those who are urging accommodation with China. This is regardless of the fact that it has torn up all agreements reached since 1993. The simple truth is that Xi’s China doesn’t care about niceties, good manners and decent conduct.

How can India forget that even as Xi sat on the swing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad in 2015, he sent in 1,500 troops into India. Since then it’s been one thing after another taking ties on a nosedive.

The strange thing about China’s behaviour is that even as it creates problems for its neighbours, it also piously calls for de-linking its own behaviour from economic relations. Implicit in this is a threat: “as long as you buy or borrow from me, I will not trouble you too much”.

India has accepted this demand since 1988 and trade between the two countries has grown massively, with China now enjoying a huge surplus in excess of $100 billion. But this has not resulted in good behaviour by China.

In fact, it’s been the opposite. India is right in insisting now that ties cannot be normalised until China pulls back its troops in Ladakh to the pre-Galwan line. What this means though is that the deadlock in ties is set to continue.

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