By Ankit Panda
India will accept China’s economic overtures but it won’t abandon its strategic mistrust so soon.
Despite China’s attempt at an early foreign policy “reset” with India following Narendra Modi’s election victory, it appears that it will take more for Beijing to convince New Delhi to abandon years of strategic mistrust towards Beijing. While Modi is willing to expand economic cooperation between the two countries —as he indicated he would when he met with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in early June 2014 — his government’s actions so far suggest that New Delhi won’t be rushing to abandon its strategic status quo vis-a-vis China, at least in the northeast. Two recent developments support this assertion: Modi making his initial trip abroad as prime minister to Bhutan, and his party’s recent decision to earmark funds for actively promoting development and settlements along the disputed India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh.
On the face of it, Modi’s Bhutan trip was primarily appreciated as an attempt by India’s dynamic new leader to directly engage smaller regional countries in an attempt to cement India’s regional status. His decision to travel to Bhutan was announced not long after his decision to invite all of South Asia’s heads of government (including the Tibetan leader-in-exile Lobsang Sangay) to his inauguration as prime minister in New Delhi. Bhutan was a particularly sensible choice as the country is rather reliant on India for its own security and is currently navigating a stagnant territorial dispute with China. While Bhutan has become more independent in its foreign policy since the 1970s, when it acquired U.N. membership, it used to have India represent its interests when it came to diplomacy with China.
Read the full story at The Diplomat