By the metrics of a successful summit Prime Minister Narendra Modis meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jinping has gone along well. Its optics too should be a source of satisfaction for New Delhi. Modis pictures with Jinping in Wuhan went viral. The picture of their walk along the banks of the Wuhans East Lake was telling in its show of the new-found chemistry between the leaders. Many other pictures only reinforced this point. Both leaders made every effort to mend their relations harmed by over a month long tense standoff in the Doklam region last year. Indian forces attempted to prevent China from building a road in a part of the plateau claimed by Bhutan. Later, both countries announced they had withdrawn all their troops from the site without telling how the crisis was resolved. At their informal summit the leaders tried to repair their ties and try and work on their differences coming in the way of their cooperation at the regional and global level.
In a rare acknowledgement of Indias role in the world, Jinping said the influence of India and China was increasing steadily in the region and the world, and that there was vast space and a bright future for bilateral cooperation. But would the two countries be able to cooperate sustainably and thus, in a sense, reshape the regional geo-politics? It looks unlikely. In recent years, the geopolitical moves by the two countries have made the attempts at cooperation that much more difficult. India has signed Chabahar deal with Iran in its search for an alternative to 54 billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor. The port would open a transit route to Afghanistan and Central Asia for Indian goods and products, avoiding the land route through Pakistan. On the other hand, the CPEC connects West China with Arabian Sea and seeks to economically transform the area from Pakistan to Chinas north western Xinjiang province through a network of highways, railways and pipelines spreading across 3000 kilometers.
The two projects signal a new geo-political rivalry in the region. India has moved closer to United States and China has made a common cause with Russia and its all-weather friend and Indias arch-rival Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has given Pakistan a renewed strategic leverage in the region.
But the friendly relations between New Delhi and Beijing could nuance the new regional alignments and introduce new factors into the equations among the countries. It could also impact Kashmir. China could water down its stance on Kashmir and also get Pakistan to reign in its Kashmir centric militant groups in return for India ceasing to patronise Tibetan independence movement. A thaw in China-India ties could also lend some impetus to the resolution of the longstanding issues which underpin the instability in the region. There is certainly a world of possibilities inherent in an Indo-China dialogue. The challenge for the two countries is to realize that.
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