NEW DELHI – Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Napoleon’s famous foreignminister, prescribed a basic rule for pragmatic foreign policy: “by nomeans show too much zeal”. In India’s case, oozing zealousness, gushyexpectations and self-deluding hype have blighted foreign policy undersuccessive leaders, except for a period under Indira Gandhi. Zeal has beento India’s male prime ministers what grand strategy is to great powers.
India has rushed to believe what it wanted to believe. Consequently, Indiais the only known country to have repeatedly cried betrayal, not byfriends, but by adversaries in whom it reposed trust. India’s foreignpolicy since Independence can actually be summed up in three words: hug,then repent.
Consider Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s abrupt U-turn in China policy.Stemming the deterioration in relations with Beijing makes eminent sense soas to create more strategic space for India. With escalating US sanctionsforcing Russia to pivot to China even as Washington still treats Beijingwith kid gloves, India can rely on an unpredictable and transactionalDonald Trump administration only at its own peril. During the Doklamstandoff, for example, Washington stayed neutral.
To leverage any policy change, the shift must be subtle, nuanced andmeasured, with the country displaying not zeal but a readiness to moveforward reciprocally. Modi’s first attempt to “reset” ties with China in2014 boomeranged spectacularly. Still, his latest reset effort began as ajarring volte-face, or what a Global Times commentary hailed as “India’sprudence in addressing Beijing’s concerns over the Dalai Lama”. The cabinetsecretary’s intentionally leaked advisory to peers in February was apropitiatory message to China that India has changed its policy to shunofficial relations with the Dalai Lama and other exiled Tibetan leaders.
It was Modi who sought an “informal” summit with Chinese President XiJinping, conveying his readiness to travel to China for such a meeting. Inthis century, Chinese presidents or premiers have visited India a total ofseven times, including twice for BRICS summits. But Modi, in office forbarely four years, will be making his fifth visit to China next month forthe Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
To be sure, Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, displayed no less zealtoward China. With the era of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai now back, Congresspresident Rahul Gandhi plans to shortly visit the sacred mountain-and-lakeduo of Kailash-Mansarover, access to which China punitively cut off forIndians last year. Beijing has now agreed to reopen such access and alsoresume transfer of hydrological data, but only after it demonstrated its“right” to act punitively, whenever it wants, even by breaching bindingbilateral accords, as on sharing Brahmaputra and Sutlej flow data.
For China, the return of the Hindi-Chini bhai bhai era creates a win-winsituation. It means India will mute its criticisms and not challenge China.Nor will India leverage trade or threaten Trump-style punitive tariffs tolevel the playing field. China thus will have its cake and eat it too — itwill savour a fast-growing trade surplus (which has already doubled underModi) while it mounts strategic pressure on multiple Indian flanks.
So, Xi seized on Modi’s overtures by inviting him to his Wuhan parlour —“the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy”, to quote a line fromthe poem The Spider and the Fly. Xi’s generous hospitality extended toglowing State-media coverage. But what did Modi return with? Tellingly,China’s press release supports neither of India’s two key claims — that Xiand Modi “issued strategic guidance” to their respective militaries toprevent further border friction and that the two agreed to “balanced andsustainable” trade.
Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodilehoping it will eat him last”. Modi’s Reset 2.0 seeks to feed the giantcrocodile across the Himalayas in the hope of buying peace for India.Modi’s faith in the power of his personal diplomacy is redolent ofJawaharlal Nehru’s similar approach to foreign policy. But as happenedunder Nehru, Modi’s fond hope conflicts with China’s grand strategy. Xi isdetermined to make China great again by fair means or foul, includingkeeping a potential peer competitor like India in check.
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If Modi’s Wuhan trip is not to bring trouble like his Lahore visit, whichengendered deadly, Pakistan-scripted terrorist attacks on army bases, Indiawill have to be on its guard. China has already outflanked India bystealthily occupying much of Doklam. As the philosopher George Santayanawarned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. -Hindustan Times
*By: Brahma Chellaney, he is a geostrategist and author*