Forced Concessions

A viral video clip shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi clasping the hands of the Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president Xi Jinping, during his first visit to China in seven years. The three leaders were interacting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Tianjin. Putin seemingly referred to the trio as “We three friends,” before the broadcast signal cut off the rest of the interpreter’s translation. Whether on being called Xi’s friend or on some other topic, Modi laughed several times during the conversation—the nervous laughter barely masking the unenviable predicament he finds himself in.

Humiliated by US President Donald Trump and his closest advisors, the New York Times compared Modi's antics at Tianjin to that of a “jilted lover.” Modi’s Hindutva supporters put up posters in Bhopal, announcing a mock funeral for Trump on 1 September and labelled him a traitor to the cause of Sanatana Dharma. After being abandoned by Trump, Modi was now actively engaging Xi to send a message. This scenario, along with being a meme-fest, has serious ramifications. India’s foreign policy, as Aakar Patel aptly put it, has ended up reducing Modi to being tossed between Trump and Xi. The Chinese are fully aware of this dynamic. “China helped Pakistan shoot down seven Indian fighter jets, and Sino-Indian relations, long frozen, suddenly began to rekindle their relationship,” read one viral Weibo post. “And it was the Indian Prime Minister who personally visited to discuss the matter.”

Besides short clips and photos, which are always the main outcome of any foreign trip by Modi, there was little substantive reason to view the Tianjin trip as a successful visit. India and China announced the resumption of flights which had stopped since the COVID-19 pandemic, but this was already anticipated for months. A senior Chinese diplomat had told me in July that the ministry of external affairs explained the delay was due to some home-ministry processes and that flights would start soon. The Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage resumed, as did trade from three border posts, but these are minor issues in a relationship beset by major challenges for India.

The foremost challenge is the situation on the border in eastern Ladakh. Much is made of disengagement being achieved in certain areas, but that simply means soldiers have moved away from a direct eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. Despite disengagement, Indian soldiers and graziers cannot access many areas they were able to visit until May 2020 because these now fall within buffer zones. While inaccessible to both sides, this is far more disadvantageous to India, as major portions of these buffer zones were considered Indian territory before 2020. The external-affairs minister S Jaishankar euphemistically described these in parliament as “steps of a temporary and limited nature.” These were to be “revisited as the situation demands,” but have not been revisited by either side for the past ten months. A new status quo has been established by the People’s Liberation Army in eastern Ladakh, and meekly accepted by India.