File Photo
India-China relations have taken a turn for the worse lately, highlighted most prominently by China’s so-far successful efforts to keep India out of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG). When it comes to defence and security, the Modi government’s concerns about China’s rising clout in Asia have prompted it to move closer to the United States. This coldness appears to be partly a result of declining economic relations: diminishing returns from economic engagement with China encourage the centre to prioritise strategic issues over Chinese investment. But the national government’s new approach is increasingly putting it at odds with its own states, which continue to see China as a source of investment rather than a strategic problem.
Prime Minister Modi sent a message to China on his first day in office, when he welcomed Lobsang Sanghay, the leader of the Tibetan government in exile, to his inauguration. Although the two sides have worked to keep things positive, they have struggled to overcome deep differences of opinion on Pakistan and India’s place in the global order. Indian elites’ opinions on China have hardened following China’s block on an Indian attempt to have Masood Azhar designated as a terrorist by the UN and, more recently, China’s perceived role as the lone stalwart preventing India’s entry into the NSG.
But not every Indian politician criticised China for its role in blocking India’s application for membership in the NSG. Days after India’s rebuke in Seoul, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and a member of Prime Minister Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called for economic dialogue with China to continue despite setbacks in the national security arena. Chouhan had just returned from his second trip to China since coming to power in the poor, populous state of Madhya Pradesh. Chouhan spoke at an investors’ conference, lobbied the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for funding for irrigation projects, and promoted his plans to create four industrial townships solely for Chinese investors.
Chouhan is far from the only regional leader courting China. Even as India was smarting from its loss at the NSG plenary in Seoul, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu departed on a five-day trip China. A review of the Wadhwani Chair’s weekly Update on India’s States shows that since October alone Chinese groups (government or private) have frequently interacted with the states we cover:
No comments:
Post a Comment