How Long Can India’s China Juggle Last? - 16 January 2018

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I looked at the changing dynamics in India-China relations. In this piece, "How Long Can India’s China Juggle Last?," I argue that while New Delhi continues to walk a fine balance, its ability to sustain this approach remains to be seen.

India’s China policy is going through a bit of a strange time. Since the Wuhan Summit in April 2018 the two countries have been making great efforts to demonstrate that all is well in their relationship and that both sides expect the relationship to warm up further in the coming years. On the other hand, there is little indication that India’s concern about China’s military and political pressure is declining. It is unclear how long India can stay on these diverging tracts.

For the full essay, click here.



At the diplomatic level, New Delhi has been doing its best to keep the smile on its face. As an indicator of this, the number of diplomatic engagements between the two sides has been in the spotlight and has seen officials convey words of warmth to reaffirm the state of ties. In late December in particular, in addition to official bilateral exchanges, there was also an India-China High-Level Media Forum as well as an India-China Think Tank Forum.

Addressing the Media Forum, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, “my close friend and my brother” before going onto emphasize the need for people-to-people, cultural, and educational exchanges. She noted the “Wuhan Spirit,” thanked China for the “concrete steps” taken by the “Chinese side” to find a solution to the increasing trade deficit, and listed the various multilateral forums where India and China are cooperating. A day earlier, in a message to the Think Tank Forum, she noted the “civilizational bonds” between the two countries and highlighted the expectations that India and China will lead Asia and usher in a new Asian century.

As important as what was said was also what was left unsaid. Hosting the newly elected prime minister of Bhutan, Lotay Tshering on his inaugural state visit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi waxed eloquent about Indo-Bhutanese relations and Indian assistance as a “trusted partner and friend in the development of Bhutan” with space science becoming a “new dimension” in India-Bhutan relations. Despite the fact that months-long Doklam confrontation had taken place on Bhutanese territory, there was little indication of any international issue and certainly not China in his speech.

While these issues are almost certain to have come up during the discussions, India’s reluctance to raise them publicly fits with much of the public signaling by India on other issues as well. For example, in a speech at the recently concluded Raisina Dialogue, Swaraj outlined the critical challenges that confront India as terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and climate change. Again, there wasn’t even a hint of the potentially more serious challenges that India is facing on the international front.

On the other hand, India’s concerns about China’s inroads especially in the maritime domain continue to grow. Speaking at the same Raisina Dialogue, Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba stated that there are six to eight Chinese navy warships in the northern part of Indian Ocean at any given point of time, putting one quantitative metric down around India’s rising concerns about Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. He also supported the Quad idea, stating that it stood for inclusive, free, rules-based order. He predicted that the Quad — a grouping consisting of India, Australia, Japan, and the United States — will grow with time. Considering India’s official reluctance on the Quad question, especially its military component, this was undoubtedly a surprising statement.

Lamba particularly noted the presence of Chinese submarines in the area, wondering about their use in supposed Chinese anti-piracy operations. He is not alone; the Indian Navy’s worries about Chinese submarines are growing. It is about to award Cochin Shipyards a contract for building eight new anti-submarine corvettes. The Navy also just inaugurated the Information Fusion Center, based in Gurugram in the National Capital Region, to coordinate maritime intelligence with multiple countries. India has also just opened a new airbase, INS Kohasa, on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which host India’s only triservice command center and are located at a critical spot close to Indonesia and the Malacca Straits.

There is little doubt that New Delhi is doing its best to calm the tensions in its relations with China, but there is also little doubt that the pressure on India is growing. Whether these two can be reconciled remains to be seen.

Can the New China-India Thaw Last? - October 19, 2018

Last week, I did my weekly column for The Diplomat on the state of the India-China relations and whether the current thaw is long lasting or not. In the "Can the New China-India Thaw Last?," I argue that despite India’s recent seeking of friendlier ties with Beijing, the future prospects for relations remain uncertain.

A year after Doklam, India appears to be intent on seeking friendlier ties with Beijing. Whether this is sustainable for the long-term, however, is unclear. Even as this process has unfolded, India continues to worry about China’s activities in the neighborhood and continues to build up its ties with other partners, though cautiously.



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Since April, there have been a series of meetings between the top Indian and Chinese leaders, Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping. After the “informal” summit in Wuhan in April, the two met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Qingdao in June and the BRICS leaders’ summit in Johannesburg in July.

At the Wuhan Summit, Modi and Xi agreed to the China-India Plus cooperation format to work in third countries such as Afghanistan. Thereafter, India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale went on to develop an outline for a capacity-building project, which was announced on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Qingdao in June.

On October 15, India and China jointly began a training program for Afghan diplomats in New Delhi, a significant development. Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui is reported to have said that the two countries should collaborate in other neighboring countries such as Iran, Nepal, and Myanmar. The 10 Afghan officers, on finishing the training at the Foreign Service Institute in India, will go to China for the second leg as part of the joint training program.

Though Afghanistan sent its diplomats for training under the program, the Afghan leadership is reportedly disappointed with India. Kabul is apparently of the view that because of India joining hands with China, there has been a downgrading of India’s assistance to Afghanistan to “smaller” projects as a way of assuaging Pakistan’s concerns. Reports indicate that “India had, in fact, conceded [to] China’s request to jointly implement a limited ‘capacity building’ project to opt for a smaller project in Afghanistan, possibly to assuage its ally Pakistan’s misgivings.”

India’s efforts to assuage China are not limited to Afghanistan alone. The two sides are slated to sign a bilateral internal security cooperation pact on October 22 during the visit of Zhao Kezhi, China’s minister of public security to India. Intelligence exchange, sharing of best practices, exchange programs, and cooperation in disaster mitigation are some of the areas the two sides intend to cooperate on under this agreement.

Quoting officials, reports suggest that this security cooperation arrangement could possibly lead to an agreement to exchange prisoners in each other’s countries. There are apparently 10 Indian prisoners is Chinese prisons and “an equal number of Chinese in Indian prisons as well,” according to the Financial Express. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to come to India in December to co-chair a meeting that focuses on people-to-people ties, a decision that was taken by Modi and Xi in the wake of the Doklam crisis.

While New Delhi tries to address Beijing’s concerns, there are questions about how long all this will last, given that there seems to be no letup in the expansion of China’s military and diplomatic presence in India’s periphery. For instance, just as India and China started their joint training program for Afghan diplomats, China was busy deploying PLA Navy submarines in the Indian Ocean after a gap of more than a year. It has been reported that China had sent a Type 039A Yuan class SSK diesel submarine and submarine rescue vessel, which were sighted in the Indian Ocean earlier this month. This is the first such PLA Navy mission in the Indian Ocean since the Doklam crisis.

How India will respond remains to be seen. India’s Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba recently said that India was “working with all like-minded nations and we are in dialogue with China as well.”

Meanwhile, China is also continuing to demonstrate its interest in pushing into India’s sphere of influence in Bhutan. Even though Beijing has no formal diplomatic ties with Thimphu, it has been expanding its footprint in Bhutan for a while now. Reports suggest that China has increased the number of shipments into Bhutan in the past decade, everything from machinery to cement to electrical equipment to toys to the point where China is now “the third largest source of foreign products” to Bhutan.

As India seeks better ties with China, it is also continuing to build up its partnerships in the region. India-Japan maritime cooperation saw a boost with the re-starting of the exercise, JIMEX that concluded earlier this week. India also held the inaugural 2+2 Dialogue with the United States last month and signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA). India-Australia ties are also seeing some revival with a number of security dialogues and military exercises between the two sides.

On the other hand, in a demonstration of “strategic autonomy” from the United States, India has signed an agreement to purchase the S-400s anti-aircraft missiles from Russia and also plans to buy more oil from Iran from November, despite the threat of U.S. sanctions. Whether India can continue this high stakes strategic tightrope-walking remains to be seen.

My contribution to the ChinaFile Conversation this week - One Year After They Almost Went to War, Can China and India Get Along?

This week's ChinaFile Conversation @AsiaSociety focused on India-China relations, specifically looking at the likelihood of another border stand-off that might erupt in the near future - One Year After They Almost Went to War, Can China and India Get Along?. This is a pertinent question to ask, a year after the Doklam conflict. The ChinaFile Conversation carried short write-ups from other experts as well, including: Jeff Smith, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Sameer Lalwani.

I argue that even as Sino-Indian relations have stabilized since the serious military confrontation last year at Doklam, the fundamental problems between the two sides continue to persist. The “informal” Wuhan summit between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi was touted as the “reset” in the bilateral relations. The two leaders have met again at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, and there are more meetings planned. The talks are believed to have improved understanding between the two sides even as substantive issues between India and China remain.
Though there is optimism, there appears to have been no significant progress made on issues that are crucial to both sides.

For the full article, click here.



Though there is optimism, there appears to have been no significant progress made on issues that are crucial to both sides. Beijing has yet to accept India’s concerns on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), especially the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) branch of the BRI, or support India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or India’s efforts to use multilateral tools to contain Pakistan’s support for terrorism. India remains concerned also about China’s greater role and presence in the maritime space in India’s neighborhood, and China has not taken steps to reassure India that its intentions are benign.

For China, India’s lack of endorsement of the BRI may still irritate. India has supported regional connectivity proposals, but New Delhi has articulated that “connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognized international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality, and must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Accordingly, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has stated that the “so-called ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ violates India’s sovereign.”

While these are important parameters for both India and China to judge the state of the relations, a more critical and a deep-rooted problem is the competition for the Asian strategic space. Beijing believes its rise is a natural phenomenon and it approaches the world in a hierarchical manner, which is increasingly problematic for a number of countries in the Indo-Pacific, including India. The speech delivered by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin at the sixth Xiangshan Forum, held in October 2015, reveals China’s view: he spoke about the responsibility of “big countries” in not creating spheres of influence while small and medium countries should not take sides between big countries. The Chinese division of the international system into big, medium, and small countries itself reflects China’s hierarchical view of the international system and the differentiated role that it has assigned to itself as a big country and to its neighbors as small countries that ought to know their place. This line of thinking repeated itself when President Xi discussed with President Obama the format for developing a new pattern of major country relations. Such an approach is hardly the way to reassure its neighbors or win friends. The Asian strategic order that China seems to want is one where it sees itself as the hegemon. Therefore, even as relations have become warmer, it is unlikely that Sino-Indian relations have stabilized for good. Border stand-offs like Doklam are just the beginning of a troubling phase in Asian security.

What Does the Modi-Xi Summit Mean for Sino-Indian Relations?, my this week's column for The Diplomat

"What Does the Modi-Xi Summit Mean for Sino-Indian Relations?," my this week's column for The Diplomat published on Thursday, a day before the informal summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Though the interaction between the two leaders is notable, there is reason for skepticism and managing expectations.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to Wuhan in central China for an “informal summit” with the Chinese President Xi Jinping. The visit comes against the backdrop of nearly two years of friction between India and China over a whole host of issues including the Doklam standoff, India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) bid, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

What will the summit between the two leaders produce? Of course, there is no set agenda and it may be a fairly free-wheeling conversation. Given the deep hostility that exists and the anti-India rhetoric that was on display last year during the Doklam crisis, it is not certain that such negative sentiments can be brushed under the rug that quickly.

For the full essay, click here.



The bilateral relationship plummeted to an all-time low in the wake of friction on multiple fronts. But in December last year, two high-level visits from China suggested the need for a fresh review of the relationship. Within a few weeks of each other, both the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and State Councilor Yang Jiechi visited India.

Since early February this year, there have been efforts from the Indian side too – the cancellation of the Dalai Lama’s events in Delhi marking the occasion of 60 years in exile of the Dalai Lama, was the first indication of the Indian outreach to China. In a note to Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha, India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said it is a “very sensitive time” in India’s bilateral relations with China and therefore, it is “not desirable” for government officials and other leaders to take part in the celebrations of the Tibetan government in exile.

Several weeks later, it was reported that the Indian government had actually informed China about this before advisory was sent out. Informing China appears to have been undertaken to earn some brownie points with Beijing. India’s overtures to China seems like a one-way process as yet, because China is yet to take any reciprocal steps.

The idea of an informal summit was first floated during the visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to China on February 23. Modi agreed to the summit in principle when he called Xi to congratulate him on the extension of his tenure in March. Since then, there have been visits by other officials, including India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who have fine-tuned various details in preparing for Modi’s summit in Wuhan. In fact, it was Sushma Swaraj, in a joint press conference with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who announced that Modi will visit China. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou too travelled to India in April to finalize the summit details.

Even though Modi will be traveling to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit on June 9-10, the Indian leadership took the bold decision to make another earlier visit for the summit. The idea of an informal meeting is not to have a set agenda and engage in a free-flowing conversation between the two leaders. The conversation could include the domestic political and economic climate in both the countries, regional developments like the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and international ones such as the U.S.-China trade war. While it is impossible to predict the outcome of this meeting, the importance and consequence of the state of Sino-Indian relationship for Asian security and stability cannot be ignored.

There is disquiet in New Delhi because China has not demonstrated any reciprocal efforts to pacify India. On the contrary, China has engaged in additional efforts to boost its military forces in the Doklam area, as well as in other areas along the disputed Sino-Indian border. Construction of a new road and military posts (at least two) in Shaksgam Valley, north of Siachen Glacier, in the past few months also raises concerns. Shaksgam Valley is located in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and was ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963, although India does not acknowledge this and treats the Valley as part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

This may not yet pose itself as a direct threat to Indian armed forces deployed in Siachen Glacier, Nonetheless, the Chinese action was described by the former Indian army Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen. DS Hooda as a “provocative” step.

There is thus considerable skepticism in India about the summit. Progress on the bilateral front will be judged on whether Beijing shows some sensitivity to Indian concerns on the BRI and CPEC, on India’s NSG bid, and on terrorism. China’s rising influence and growing footprint in South Asia and Indian Ocean are of concern to India and China has not acted to reassure India about China’s long-term intentions.

Nevertheless, China appears to believe that India has agreed to the Wuhan summit because New Delhi has recognized the follies of the so-called Indo-Pacific partnership with the United States and Japan and the ill-effects of that strategy on Sino-Indian relations. Some Chinese analysts suggest that many of the frictions in India-China relations are a result of “lack of trust” or “Western instigation.”

But so far, there is also little indication that India will bend. For instance, on the BRI, India has officially stated that “the so-called ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ violates India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. “No country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement continues. “We are of firm belief that connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognized international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality, and must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Indeed Sushma Swaraj reiterated this at the SCO Foreign Minister’s meeting and stated: “Connectivity with SCO countries is India’s priority. We want connectivity to pave the way for cooperation and trust between our societies. For this, respect for sovereignty is essential. Inclusivity, transparency and sustainability are imperative. India has cooperated extensively with the international community for enhanced connectivity.” India has once again refused to endorse the BRI.

All of this, as well as the efforts on both sides to lower expectations, suggest that not much should be expected out of the informal summit. Indeed, beyond some general and temporary stabilization of ties, it is not exactly clear what either side will get out of this meeting.