India-China Talks Next Week Will Be Influenced By Trump

India and China will hold their first Strategic Dialogue in Beijing on Wednesday led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and his counterpart Hang Yesui, but the problem with this characterization by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is that this is not the "first" such dialogue taking place between the two Asian powers.

According to the MEA website itself, five rounds of a bilateral conversation under this exact name have taken place between 2005 - when Shyam Saran was Foreign Secretary - and 2013, when Sujatha Singh was Foreign Secretary. In the interim, three other Foreign Secretaries, namely Shiv Shankar Menon, Nirupama Rao and Ranjan Mathai, have dealt with China under this rubric itself.

Perhaps it is in the nature of the Modi government to reinvent the wheel, to breast the imaginary "me-first" tape. Foreign policy was, once upon a time, supposed to cut across party lines, no matter that each Prime Minister put his distinctive stamp on its running. But under this Prime Minister, the penchant to talk about going where no man, or woman, has gone before has had its fair share of takers in the foreign policy establishment.

No matter. Fact is, the top diplomats from India and China will meet next week and, as the outgoing spokesperson Vikas Swarup admitted, there are some "friction points" in the Sino-Indian relationship.

The two most important relate to China's refusal to admit India into the rarefied Nuclear Suppliers Group, even though it is believed that all the other Permanent Five nations are happy to have Delhi as a member.

The second problem is China's continued obstruction of the UN committee 1267 which has been set up to proscribe the Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar. Beijing exercised its muscle in December to refuse to let the ban go through, although all the remaining members of the UN Committee supported India.
 Remember that Azhar continues to live in Pakistan under the watchful and protected eye of the Pakistani agencies. Increasingly, Rawalpindi has put pressure on the elected government in Islamabad to defer to its "iron brother," China, inviting criticism of clientelism.

Meanwhile, Global Times, which is believed to reflect the views of the Chinese establishment, has been patronizing about ISRO's record launch of 104 satellites, saying that although "Indians have reason to be proud...the space technology race is not mainly about the number of satellites at one go. It's fair to say the significance of this achievement is limited. In this regard, Indian scientists know more than the Indian public, who are encouraged by media reports."

Perhaps the most interesting aspect about this so-called "first dialogue" between India and China is that this is the first time it is taking place since Donald Trump took charge as the most disruptive President of the US the world has seen in many decades.

Certainly when Trump promised to question America's "One-China" policy and in fact promptly called Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, India clapped silently in glee.
 In fact the recent Taiwanese parliamentary delegation is Delhi's equivalent of Trump calling Tsai. Vikas Swarup, the MEA's spokesman, insisted that there was nothing strange about the visit and that a variety of Taiwanese, including academics, businesspeople and legislators also visited China often.

"Political meaning should not be read into the (visit)," said Swarup, but of course, that was what the Chinese did. A "Global Times" commentary said the relationship was witnessing "severe stress" in the wake of the Taiwanese delegation's visit and that such things "should be handled" better in the future.

But Trump has since gone and spoken to Chinese president Xi Jinping and reaffirmed America's "one-China" policy. Perhaps some of the euphoria in the establishment has since dimmed.

One of the issues on the Jaishankar-Hang Yesui table are the possible dates of a high-level Chinese leader to India. President Xi Jinping has visited twice, although the October visit to Goa was for the prime purpose of attending the BRICS summit, as has PM Modi - for the second time in 2016 for the G-20 meeting in Hangzhou.

The Indian side would like Chinese premier Li Keqiang to come to Delhi - if he does, he would certainly be asked questions on the "friction" points, so it is obvious that some resolution, or at least a face-saving, has to be soon hammered out on these issues.

On the NSG matter, the Chinese have explained their so-called "obstruction" by insisting that non-P5 states must have signed the Non Proliferation Treaty or NPT, which India hasn't. Clearly, it isn't willing to adjust to Delhi's de jure status on the matter. On the other hand, the big problem is that India's tough Nuclear Liability law has made it much more difficult to do business with western states like the US.
 Certainly, both sides would like to play down their differences and promote their stakes in Asian stability. The Chinese are said to be looking forward too, which is why the ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, at a University of Bombay function in January, proposed a "Friendship and Cooperation Treaty" as well as a free trade agreement between the two sides.

Mr Luo, who was asked to cut short his tenure in Canada in October and take charge of India, on the eve of Xi Jinping's Goa visit for the BRICS summit, described these friction points as "matters within a family."

Significantly, Mr Luo pointed out that the time was ripe for the two countries to reap some "early harvest" benefits regarding the contentious boundary issue that has remained unresolved since the 1962 border war between the two countries.

Although National Security Advisor Ajit Doval represents India as the PM's Special Representative on the border talks, it is more than likely that the subject will be discussed at next week's strategic dialogue.

More than anything, though, this first conversation will be an attempt to gauge each other in the wake of Trump's ascension to the throne. India's Jaishankar will want to get a sense of what and how China thinks about Mr Trump; certainly his own recent comments, saying that there was no need to "demonise but analyse" Trump is partly aimed at the pragmatic Chinese, known to take advantage of any twist in the tale.

The Foreign Secretary here is saying that India should actually take a leaf out of China's book and do the same.

Certainly, if India has the benefit of Trump's support vis-à-vis China, there is no question that it will be able to gain much greater leverage, even though it is a much smaller economy than China's, and much less able to project power.

(Jyoti Malhotra has been a journalist for several years and retains an especial passion for dialogue and debate across South Asia.)

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