By Ankit Panda
China remains interested in transforming its relationship with India.
China-India relations are mover quicker than they have in a while on the strategic level. Most of the initiative over this summer has come from the Chinese side, which wasted little time following Narendra Modi’s historic electoral victory in attempting to woo India with a foreign policy “reset” of sorts. Xi Jinping sent Foreign Minister Wang Yi as his envoy to New Delhi in an attempt to shift the nexus of the India-China bilateral relationship from cooperation between rivals to that of cooperation between friends with mutual interests.
Recently, Wang met Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in Napyidaw, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Foreign Ministers’ meeting. He emphasized the potential for India and China to build their relations on the basis of cooperation: ”China and India, the two biggest developing countries who are neighbors, if join hands in cooperation, will make the world more balanced, secure and stable.” The meeting came on the heels of China inviting India to join Xi Jinping’s vision for a new “Silk Road,” both land-based and maritime, in Asia–again demonstrating Chinese initiative in the bilateral. With all the rhetoric coming out of Beijing of late, India seems to be an inextricable part of Xi’s initiative to economically integrate Western and Southern Asia with China.
The real litmus test for India-China relations in Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi era will come in the form of Xi Jinping’s visit to India next month. Xi is expected to visit New Delhi in the third week of September, according to The Economic Times. If one were to predict the agenda of that trip based on trends in Chinese foreign policy towards India since June, it would be likely that Xi will focus on economics and possibly initiate negotiations towards a permanent resolution to the disputed border between the two countries. India and China have a long-standing border dispute and fought a war in 1962. The disputes are over Aksai Chin in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (known as South Tibet in China) in the East. China administers the former and India administers the latter.
Read the full story at The Diplomat