Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China on May 14-16 had appended to it a foray into Mongolia, last visited by President Pratibha Patil in 2011, and a swing through Republic of Korea on May 18-19. He was adding shape and colour to India’s Asia policy, balancing China engagement with cementing ties with Chinese neighbours, particularly those sharing cultural or religious links with India, and particularly those that are nascent democracies.
The China visit, commencing in Xi’an, highlighted the Buddhist link between India and China, as the famous monk Xuanzang (602-664 CE) began his 17-year pilgrimage to India there. On his Twitter account Mr Modi posted a picture of a gift he received at the Wild Goose Pagoda: a figurine of the monk and Buddha’s picture with the message — “Water The Friendship Between India and China With Oriental Wisdom”.
The diplomatic trapeze between India and China is about this “wisdom”. Both countries are led by nationalist leaders who have consolidated more power than their immediate predecessors. Both nations are rising and thus testing existing international regimes governing trade, finance and security as well as measuring each other to adjust mounting nationalism, or even jingoism, amongst their peoples.
The Modi visit was thus aimed at two levels. Firstly, recalibrating existing fields of engagement, i.e., balancing trade, encouraging Chinese direct investment in manufacturing and infrastructure, increasing people-to-people links, testing soft-power leverages, etc. And, secondly, addressing more forthrightly the trust deficit by presenting Indian core interests and discussing, if it so wished, those of China. The Modi doctrine is, thus, diplomacy via ceremony, surface bonhomie, symbolism accompanied by simple but clear articulation of national imperatives while dangling the Indian market as a reward for Chinese good behaviour. This explains his public call for China to “reconsider” its approach to certain issues if the full potential of bilateral relations has to be achieved. The Chinese silence may mean unwillingness at this stage to revise yet their containment strategy in South Asia.
Although 24 agreements, worth $22 billion, were inked, they were memorandums of understanding (MoUs), not finalised agreements, and largely Chinese bank financing for Indian corporates acquiring equipment/projects from China. The related issue of China opening its market to Indian pharmaceuticals, agricultural products or services remains nebulous. Also unclear is how Chinese in-bound direct investment in designated zones will be balanced between their export commitment and access to Indian market.
The visit to Mongolia, marking 60 years of diplomatic relations, was significant but inaccurately projected as a new overture. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru strongly supported Mongolia’s membership of the United Nations in 1961. In 1972, along with close Indian friend Bhutan, Mongolia was a co-sponsor of a UN resolution to recognise Bangladesh. A prescient V.P. Singh government in 1990 sent Kushok Bakula, the chief lama of Ladakh, as the Indian ambassador to Mongolia, which was then rediscovering its spiritual roots after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In his six years there the Indian envoy contributed to this process, earning personal reverence and friendship for India.
Contemporary bilateral relations, though dwarfed commercially by China’s trade of $300 million in 2014, constituting 90 per cent of Mongolian exports, rest on this strong foundation. Though landlocked, access can be planned by a surface route were India to develop connectivity via Chahbahar in Iran, Central Asia and a corner of Russia. Ambitious, but not unimaginable as Indian economic power expands, this could be the Indian answer to China’s One Road One Belt.
Republic of Korea, or South Korea, which cherishes the memory of an Indian princess from Ayodhya marrying King Kim Suro in 48 CE, shares the additional dilemma of China using the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or North Korea) to contain it much as China has used Pakistan against India. Indian relations with the Republic of Korea took off only post the Soviet collapse when India started looking at US allies in East Asia through non-doctrinaire eyes. In 2010, the two nations became “strategic partners”, signing also a Comprehensive Economic and Partnership Agreement.
In 2011, bilateral trade touched $20 billion, crossing Indian trade with Japan. Republic of Korea’s success has depended on creating new and reliable brands, thus emulating Japan. But South Korea is strategically conflicted, caught between China that supports DPRK, indirectly vitiating the Korean peninsula security environment, and Japan, with which North Korea has lingering war issues that neither nation is able to fully bury. However, for India, it is an important democratic and economic hedge to balance Chinese influence. Mr Modi’s visit was to re-assess how to take the relationship to the next level, marrying the “Make in India” credo with South Korea’s desire to diversify its portfolio of investment in India to ship-building, nuclear power, etc.
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in her memoir Hard Choices notes that her first visit was to Asia as it is there they “expected much of the history of the 21st century to be written”. The countries she visited were Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Japan and China. Mr Modi has correctly covered three of these. His absence from the Bandung Conference’s 60th anniversary in Indonesia, dominated by Chinese President Xi Jinping unlike the original show which Nehru bestrode colossus-like, betrays a crack in his vision. The Sino-Indian drama will be enacted in Asia as well as across the developing world — the source of raw materials and food to power global growth. Mr Modi needs to restore balance between Indian relations with the developed and developing worlds, particularly in Africa and the Islamic world. If not, the latter may share Rahul Gandhi’s barb that India cares only for those in suits and Gucci shoes.
The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh
