By Saurav Jha
The Chinese president is in India hoping to manage a complex economic and security relationship.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting an India that for the first time in 25 years has given a clear mandate to a single party. He is meeting with a prime minister, Narendra Modi, who is known both for his hardline nationalist stance on foreign policy issues and a geo-economic sagacity. Moreover Modi’s government is also being actively courted by Shinzo Abe’s Japan at a time when the new normal for Sino-Japanese ties involves dangerous maneuvers in disputed East Asian waters.
As such, the Chinese side is clearly keen to position itself as an alternative capital and economic partner for an India looking to boost industrial growth and employment. Modi’s recent visit to Japan has created in China concern that an investment relationship between India and Japan might lead to a full-blown “democratic” alliance in the waters of the Indo-Pacific. India, though keen to develop its commercial partnerships in East Asia, will remain committed to freedom of navigation on the high seas and will adopt an increasingly reciprocal stance vis-à-vis China on economic and security issues. Indeed, while the visit will see much stress on economic complementarity and bonhomie with respect to institutions that promote a multi-polar world, the jostling for incremental advantage in the Asian panorama between India and China will continue.
India and China are expected to sign up to 20 agreements during this visit, many focused on cooperation in infrastructure, energy and water. The economic context was made somewhat explicit when Xi announced on the eve of the visit that China intended to invest $100 billion in India over the next five years. This was clearly aimed at upstaging Japanese investment plans of some $37 billion in India in the coming years. The Chinese are also stressing their ability to complete mega projects more cheaply and speedily than anybody else.
Read the full story at The Diplomat