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M.K.Venu is Executive Editor of Amar Ujala publications group)
After demonstrating his special relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Narendra Modi seems set to create another big sensation by having the Chinese President Xi Jinping visit Ahmedabad on 17 September, which also happens to be Modi's birthday.
Narendra Modi wants to treat the Chinese leader with personal warmth in his home state. Clearly, Modi is signalling to the world that his relationship with the Chinese leader would be as special as with any other leader of a major power. This is competitive diplomacy at its best.
He will lay the red carpet for Xi Jinping who represents the second most powerful nation in the world, in economic and military terms. Modi had met the Chinese President on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in July and the two seemed to have hit it off from the word go.
Significantly, Xi Jinping remarked recently that when he met with Modi for the first time, he felt he had known him for a long time. This suggests the two leaders have personally developed a rapport in quick time.
Modi inviting Xi Jinping to Gujarat may have another unstated symbolism. In Chinese politics, leaders rise from provinces after proving their mettle. In fact, the Communist Party hierarchy is so structured that only those leaders who succeed in creating good development models in provinces are allowed to rise to the top at the national level.
There could be other similarities in the circumstances surrounding the two leaders. Xi Jinping became President and successfully centralised all powers - political, military and economic - in his office. Before him, the Chinese President did not have direct control of the all-powerful Chinese military. The highest economic policy making body of China, the National Development and Reform Commission or NDRC, was guided more by the Prime Minister's office.
However, currently both the military and the NDRC are directly controlled by President Xi Jinping.
Narendra Modi too has concentrated powers in the key areas of defence and economic policy-making within the Prime Minister's Office.
Further, Xi Jinping has launched a big campaign against corruption within the Communist Party, though he himself rose through the ranks in that very system. Modi too has made noises about expediting cases in a time-bound manner against corrupt legislators within his party and outside. He has urged the judiciary to fast track these cases even though some of his own key party leaders are undergoing criminal trial in the courts.
Xi Jinping took power and immediately called for a dialogue between two great powers -- the United States and China. In doing so, he pitched his leadership at a new level.
Modi too has lost no time in pitching himself as an Asian leader though it is still early days for him in the foreign policy arena. So there are interesting parallels in the way the two leaders think.
A senior BJP leader who studies China very closely, told this writer that both Modi and Xi Jinping do not carry the historical baggage handed down respectively by Nehru and Mao, who are credited with modernising the two nations.
The BJP leader, known to be close to Modi, said the two leaders could therefore come up with radically different solutions to outstanding issues, relating to the borders, that have existed between the two countries for decades.
Modi knows that creating permanent peace with China could earn him a huge legacy in history. Modi had made an interesting remark after his meeting with Xi Jinping in Brazil. He had suggested India and China can possibly demonstrate to the world how historically intractable problems can be resolved by thinking differently. By inviting Xi Jinping to Ahmedabad on his birthday,Modi may be laying the foundation for such a breakthrough in the near future.
Modi also realizes that at present he has immense political capital which gives him a lot space to engage creatively with China. The Chinese are also in a mood to do big things with India, especially after seeing the way Japan and India are talking business. The Chinese Consul General in Mumbai reportedly said China could commit $100 billion of investment to India in the next five years, much more than the $35 billion offered by the Japanese.
At the present juncture, Narendra Modi is lucky to have captured the attention of the United States, China and Japan. He should make the most of this opportunity.
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