Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to take his global investment push to China this week, as Asia’s rival superpowers look to put aside a festering border dispute and identify areas of economic cooperation.
Modi is to fly out for his first visit as premier to China before heading to South Korea where he is also set to seek help to upgrade India’s creaking infrastructure. After Modi hosted Chinese President Xi Jingping (習近平) last year in his home state of Gujarat, Xi is to return the favor by giving him a tour of his ancestral home province of Shaanxi, before they head to Beijing. Modi is due to meet business chiefs in the financial hub of Shanghai, seeking to deliver on election promises for foreign investment in India’s crumbling rail and other infrastructure.
“I firmly believe this visit to China will strengthen the stability, development and prosperity of Asia,” Modi wrote on Sina Weibo about his three-day visit that begins tomorrow.
Photo: AFP
Despite a reputation as a hardline nationalist, Modi moved quickly to engage with Beijing after winning power in May last year. His main focus in his first year in office has been to revive India’s stuttering economy, courting other economic powerhouses such as the US, Japan and Germany.
Ties between China and India have long been strained over a border dispute, and Beijing’s recent push to forge closer ties with nations in India’s backyard has caused some alarm in New Delhi.
However, in a sign of Modi’s pragmatic approach toward Beijing, he has appeared relaxed about China’s ambitions, saying it has a “right” to seek greater influence.
During Xi’s visit to India in September last year — the first visit by a Chinese president in eight years — the two men spoke of their desire to place cooperation above competition and ensure “tranquility” along their border.
The two nations fought a brief, but bloody, border war in 1962 over the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, areas of which Beijing claims as South Tibet.
However, in an interview last week with Time magazine, Modi said the two nations have shown “great maturity” in recent decades over the border issue and were committed to “economic cooperation.”
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) said the “boundary question is a problem left over from history,” albeit a “difficult” one for the two nations.
Phunchok Stobdan, a China expert at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, said mutual “mistrust” remained below the surface, but Modi knows there is little point in being confrontational.
“China is our immediate neighbor so there are compelling reasons for India to be mellow with Beijing,” Stobdan said. “It’s a very pragmatic thing to understand and recognize China’s strength rather than try and compete with them. Cooperation with China is the need of the hour as far as India is concerned.”
Li told India Today magazine that China stands ready to “deepen our strategic and cooperative partnership” as well as economic ties that include two Chinese industrial parks in India.
“Cooperation between China and India is a huge treasure house waiting to be discovered,” Li said.
Analysts said Modi would be seeking greater access to China’s markets for its vast pharmaceuticals industry, and progress on funding for Indian infrastructure projects.
“There will clearly be a focus on trade and on infrastructure, such as the development of high-speed rail,” Renmin University professor of international relations Shi Yinhong (時殷弘) said.
China is India’s biggest trading partner with two-way commerce totaling US$71 billion last year. However, India’s trade deficit with China has soared from just US$1 billion in 2001-2002 to more than US$38 billion last year.
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