Why Modi and Xi need to bring India-China ties back on track

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful man, in the picturesque lakeside city of Hangzhou on Sunday morning, the circumstances were markedly different from their last meeting in that country.

In May 2015, Modi had flown in to Xi’s home province of Shaanxi for a visit with an ambitious agenda: one that was seen by both sides as an opportunity to reboot ties and script a new chapter in an often strained relationship.

The expectation was that it was two powerful leaders with once-in-a-decade mandates, the time was ripe to finally address, perhaps even resolve, thorny issues such as the border.

Fast forward to Hangzhou, and the agenda was far more modest: more firefighting than rebooting, underlining the difficulties and ups-and-downs in Modi’s outreach to China over these past two years.

Modi has been successful in courting Chinese investment which has more than doubled in the past year (albeit starting with a small base). But at the same time, recent months have seen ties beset by a growing number of irritants.

Many of those involve India’s core interests, from China’s projects in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir to its blocking of India’s moves at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), where New Delhi is seeking membership, and at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), where India has unsuccessfully sought to sanction Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar following the Pathankot attack.

China, for its part, has been warily watching India’s growing closeness to the US and the new logistics supply agreement that will enable mutual access to bases. It has also been unnerved by India’s growing footprint in its neighbourhood, noting that Modi stopped in Vietnam en route to China - the first visit by an Indian PM in 15 years - and offered a $500 million line of credit to strengthen its defence capabilities at a time when it is embroiled in maritime disputes with China.

“The hope is that this visit will help put an end to the long list of irritants that are plaguing relations and bring ties back on track,” said Han Hua, a South Asia expert and professor of international relations at Peking University.

Did the Modi-Xi tete-a-tete achieve that? In truth, the nature of such visits is that they are more an opportunity to air concerns and outline a path forward for the relationship, rather than resolve problems outright or haggle over specific issues.

But what the PM did do was convey an ambiguous message to China: that it could not expect bilateral ties to remain unaffected when it was taking positions that undermine India’s interests in international fora such as the NSG and UNSC. Beijing's refrain in several meetings was that the NSG and UNSC were "not bilateral issues", underlining its reluctance to engage with India's concerns on them.

Modi told Xi it was of “paramount importance” that strategic interests and aspirations were treated with sensitivity if ties were to go forward.

“If you read between the lines,” said ministry of external affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, “when we are talking about our strategic interests, concerns and aspirations, it is not that China is unaware of our strategic interests, concerns or aspirations, or that we are unaware of theirs. It is something that both sides are aware of.”

The message has been delivered; whether China rethinks its recent approach to India is another question. As an official put it, both sides realise the relationship has too much at stake. While it is unrealistic for thorny issues such as the border or China’s deepening strategic embrace of Pakistan to be settled overnight or even in the near future, the emphasis is on narrowing differences and widening areas of convergence.

Indeed, the G20 summit provided some glimpses of the latter. On issues such as reforming global financial institutions to give emerging countries a greater say, India and China saw the value of dovetailing their arguments. The communique also took a strong stand against trade protectionism, another issue where both countries are concerned by the rising tide against globalisation sweeping the west.

“On such issues like openness and trade, we are in sync with China,” said Arvind Panagariya, vice-chairman of Niti Aayog and sherpa to the Prime Minister at the G20, who spent several sleepless nights in Hangzhou huddled in over 40 hours of talks. The final 7,000-word communique acknowledged both countries' stands on both issues.

Modi's meeting with Xi in Hangzhou was his eighth in just two years. Even Barack Obama has only had eight meetings with China's all-powerful president since 2013.

Perhaps the one silver lining, as one diplomat put it, is that even as ties face an uncertain future challenged by a widening number of problems, both sides are engaging more frequently than ever before. The uneasy dance continues.

Also read: Can Modi’s tough talk on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir make Xi budge?

Also read: China’s openly hostile acts are forcing a recalibration in India