NEW DELHI – Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in India Friday for an”informal” seaside summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi aimed atmending relations between the historically prickly Asian giants after sharpwords over Kashmir.
China was irked by India’s August move to split Jammu and Kashmir in twobecause it will make the state’s Ladakh region — part of which is claimedby Beijing — a separate Indian administrative territory.
India meanwhile has been enraged by China’s diplomatic backing forPakistan, which controls a much larger part of Kashmir.
Part of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure mega-programme is planned inPakistan-administered Kashmir, and Xi held talks with Prime Minister ImranKhan in Beijing just two days before meeting Modi.
When Xi said he supports Pakistan’s “legitimate rights”, India’s foreignministry thundered it was “not for other countries to comment on theinternal affairs of India”.
The Indian Express newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying Modi wouldurge Xi to be more “sensitive” to India’s concerns, and to “explain to theChinese president the reasons behind Delhi’s decision on Kashmir”.
Delhi feels Beijing has broken an understanding to be aware of eachnation’s “sensitivities and concerns”, the paper said, noting India hadstayed silent over the current upheaval in Hong Kong.
“Frankly, the optics surrounding this visit don’t look very promising atthe moment,” Harsh Pant, an international relations professor at King’sCollege London, told AFP.
China’s backing of Pakistan “has left a very bad taste in India’s mouth”,Pant said.
– Dinner and dance –
India and China — home to more than a third of humanity — have never beenthe best of friends, going to war in 1962 and engaging in a series ofHimalayan standoffs since.
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The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader and long a thorn in China’sside, has been allowed to live in and travel the world from his baseDharamsala in northern India since 1959.
In 2017 Delhi and Beijing staged an alarming two-month face-off on theDoklam plateau — claimed by China and Bhutan — when Chinese troopsstarted building a road and India sent its forces to halt them.
However, the following year Xi and Modi patched things up in China’s Wuhan.Their latest meeting, over elaborate meals and dance performances inMahabalipuram on Friday and Saturday, is aimed at building on that.
Mahabalipuram — home to historical monuments that pay testament to Indiaand China’s ancient ties — has seen more than 40 Tibetans, including aprominent activist, reportedly detained ahead of the summit.
But since Wuhan other irritants have emerged, including a reported”scuffle” in Ladakh last month and Indian military activities in thenorthern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, part of which Beijing claims.
India and Washington, seeking with others to counter China’s growingregional assertiveness, have deepened military cooperation and India hasmoved closer to the Quad security dialogue with Japan, the United Statesand Australia.
On commerce India and China — both facing a protectionist America — wantgreater access to each other’s markets, with India currently importing fromChina far more than it exports there.
Beijing also wants Delhi to ignore Western cyber-security concerns onHuawei — already a big player in the India mobile sector — and allow thetelecoms firm to be part of 5G trials.
Huawei’s “contribution to India’s economic and social development isobvious to all,” China’s foreign ministry said this week, hoping Delhiwould make “independent and objective judgments and decisions”. -APP/AFP
