Lessons from a Sino-Indian Rapprochement

Global media attention was fixed on a rare and unprecedented meeting of the two leaders of North and South Korea, the images of the two leaders holding and shaking hands reached millions of viewers across legacy and social media platforms across the globe. It was heralded as a great moment of hope in a time of great uncertainty in global politics.   

• Kim Jong-un’s announcement for negotiations with South Korea took the world by surpise  
• Xi and Modi’s common challenge demonstrates that countries can work together and they as political leaders can make this work

This meeting eclipsed another meeting that took place between the Chinese President and Indian Premier on the very same day. The meetings of the two leaders were not in a formal setting, yet the fact that after a 73-day standoff in Doklam plateau between the forces of India and China and the tense nationalist narratives that almost put two most populous nations on war footing, and hence the meeting was significant in political terms.  

When Kim Jong-un announced a sudden pause to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and indicated that he is willing for immediate negotiations with his South Korean counterpart, analysts were scrambling to decipher the real motives and re-calibrate the new security environment that would emerge in the backdrop of a Korean peace process. The meeting between Xi and Modi brought out hope for a cooling Asia after months of hostilities and aggression in all domains of war fighting.  

Xi – Modi meeting  
The diplomatic initiative for the Modi-Xi meeting was led by the Indian side, whilst the Chinese quickly responded and choreographed a scenic meeting between the two leaders in the China’s Wuhan province. Whilst the meeting was an informal meeting with no real agenda there were burning challenges for both sides that pragmatically needed the two countries to work together for any workable solution to be achieved.  

Especially both leaders are in the view that there is a significant level of uncertainty in global politics that is having an impact on the larger security environment. The actions of the US, Russia, BREXIT consequences in Europe and a burning Middle East in totality had the potential to impede prosperity of Asia.   

India and China are both encountering inconsistent overtures from an ambivalent Donald Trump. Indian administration was confident that the Trump administration would stick to the policies of previous administrations of Bush and Obama which saw a deepening and widening of US relationship and a clear set of policies adopted by the United States towards India.   

USA’s Foreign Policy  
United States foreign policy currently seems to be less strategic, driven by the impulses of the Presidency and seems contradictory especially with Jared Kushner’s engagement with China and Nikki Haley’s role as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. Trump’s brand of nationalism and his fatalism when it comes to Iran and Russia two countries India have strategic relations have complicated India’s foreign relations dynamics with the United States.   

India recently snubbed Australia when it rejected Australia’s participation in the Malabar naval exercises for 2018. Australia last week publicly admitted that it would not be part of the three nation’s naval drill which includes navies of the United States, Japan along with India to be held in June this year.   

There has been talks among security experts about the resuscitation of the Quad, which was a strategic assemblage in the Indian Ocean until 2008 when Australia under its former premier Rudd led an Australian withdrawal.  

Speaking at an event organized by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS) in Colombo, earlier this year, India’s leading strategic analyst Nitin Gokhale said that India has not forgotten what Australia did a decade ago and hence is reluctant to readmit Australia back into the Quad.   

Geo political analysts argue that more than a rebuttal to Australia the Modi administration has rejected Australia to please China in this new moment of Sino India détente, which also saw the freezing of Indian relations with Tibet.   

India and China has many hurdles to cross if real, meaningful and stable rapprochement to be achieved. Prof. Swaran Singh a leading International Relations scholar from the Jawaharlal Nehru University observed India’s new and sophisticated foreign relations re-calibration as a representation of the emerging policy of ‘Multi Alignment’ a form of engagement which encourages partnering with many countries as possible without making one relationship hostage to another.  

President Xi and Prime Minister Modi’s common challenge will be to demonstrate that the countries can actually work together and they as political leaders can make this work. Political insiders are reporting of a plan for the two countries to work on a common economic project in Afghanistan. Ascertaining the mutual economic benefits in real terms may take a long time yet the political significance of a Sino Indian joint projects carries major symbolic values, especially if the site of preference is in Afghanistan.  

In strategic terms the very first joint venture between India and China to be located in Afghanistan will make Pakistan and the United States very concerned and will challenge Pakistan’s strategic orientation and push them to revisit their strategic relations with China. 

Asia Arming without Aiming  
While Asia seems to be heading towards political reconciliation in a grander scale, Asia is not immune to the increasing militarization of the region and the latest reports emerging from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is that world military expenditure rose to $1,739 billion in 2017. Asia and Middle East seem to be leading in arms procurement and arms transfers. China and India are witnessing significant increases in defence spending.  

Increasing military spending does not help in providing regional or global stability or help any conflict prevention measures in the long run. While India and China maybe cooling tensions, both countries are pursuing large scale military modernization and upgrades of every available weapon platforms.   

Till recently the nuclear dimension did not take priority in the security discourse as China to a certain extent did not perceive India’s nuclear programme to be threatening. Consistent upgrades to the Indian ballistic missile programme has irked Beijing and they have been much vocal about India’s nuclear ambitions especially since the Agni 4 missile tests in 2016.  

Sri Lanka’s choices  
From a Sri Lankan stand point, it should be realized that what is best for our prosperity and strategic interests is to accept the 21st century realities in global politics. The best form of diplomacy is to engage with as many countries as possible irrespective of their political model. For too long we have dwelt upon a foreign policy orientation of a 20th century mentality, of non-alignment and the dream of using that as furthering our interests.  

Non-alignment carved out a significant place for us in the world in the 20th century, given the realities of the cold war, but the 21st century realities are at a different level of complexity, Cold war binaries have been replaced with foreign relations that are contingent on rapidly changing global dynamics.  

India while having ambitions of regional dominance has also ceded to the fact that it still is not in a position to sustain adversarial relation with China that will harm its economic prosperity and create more instability in the region.  

Sri Lanka could and should adopt a foreign policy of ‘multi engagement’ driven by the core principal that irrespective who we engage with to stay far from their rivalries and not use these rivalries for our short term benefits. While on theory this approach is pragmatic it will take intelligent and pragmatic diplomatic skills to accommodate such skillful statecraft.  

A major challenge for a small state like Sri Lanka to shape its foreign policy, sync it with its domestic and national interests is contingent on its reading of the complex transformations in the region and the world. President Xi and PM Modi jointly called for their armed forces to prudently manage their differences. Sri Lankan foreign policy shapers need to see the telling signs of how even regional powers are flexible enough to respond to complexities, by adopting agile and flexible policy imperatives.  

The writer is the Director, Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS)