Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting in New Delhi yesterday.
A standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers overshadowed a visit to New Delhi by Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday, with a $20bn investment pledge eclipsed by robust comments from Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the dispute.
Modi and Xi emerged from a long meeting to address reporters soon after officials confirmed that soldiers had pulled back from their positions on a plateau in the western Himalayas that is claimed by both nations.
“I raised our serious concern over repeated incidents along the border,” said a stern Modi, with Xi sitting to his right.
“There should be peace in our relations and in the borders. If this happens, we can realise true potential of our relations,” added Modi, elected in May partly on promises to build a more assertive India.
Dozens of soldiers from both sides had faced off on the Ladakh plateau for over a week in a dispute about infrastructure works near the de facto border, where the two countries fought a brief war in 1962.
Raising hopes for a new push to resolve their territorial differences, Modi called for an early border settlement with China. The two sides have held 17 rounds of border talks since the early 1990s without making significant progress. Modi has yet to appoint a special envoy to restart the talks.
“We have to address the boundary question very soon,” Modi said, urging “clarification” of the Line of Actual Control - the front line where fighting ended.
In his comments, Xi played down the tensions and agreed with Modi that they should work to settle the border question, using language China has used in the past.
“Sometimes there might be certain incidents, but the two sides are fully capable of acting promptly to effectively manage the situation,” he said.
China was committed to the path of peaceful development, he said later, addressing concerns in Asia about Beijing’s increasingly assertive territorial claims including in the South China Sea, which is criss-crossed with maritime trade routes.
“A warlike state, however big it may be, will eventually perish,” he said in a speech, adding that China believed its neighbours were key to its wellbeing.
Srikanth Kondapalli, a China watcher with Delhi’s Jawarharlal Nehru University, said Modi’s tough words were aimed a domestic audience ahead of regional elections, including in Ladakh, a remote corner of Kashmir.
“As a nationalist, he stood his ground, but the fact of the matter is that he cannot control the other side,” he said, saying fast progress on a permanent border fix was unlikely.
“Both sides have given a diplomatic but stiff response, both sides have said (the border) should be resolved early but there is no deadline.”
Despite the tension, the two sides were able to agree on investments aimed at significantly upgrading their commercial relationship, with China pledging $20bn over the next five years for industrial parks and infrastructure including railway technology.
That contrasts with just $400mn in Chinese investment in India over the last 14 years.
The leaders agreed to begin talks on co-operating in the nuclear power industry and Xi said China would support India becoming a full member of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation - a regional security body whose largest members are China and Russia. He also supported India’s aspiration to play a greater role at the UN, including on the Security Council.
Modi is keen on Chinese investment to help balance $65bn in annual trade that is heavily tilted in China’s favour. Xi promised more access for India’s pharmaceutical, farming and fuel products to China.
Modi has rolled out the red carpet for Xi, hosting a private dinner in a luxury riverside tent in his home city of Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
India’s newly-elected leader is eager to secure Chinese funding to fulfil his election pledge to overhaul his country’s crumbling infrastructure, which has held back economic growth in the country of 1.2bn people.
But he has also signalled he will pursue a more muscular foreign policy than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, who critics say was too soft on China.
During his election campaign, Modi said China would have to shed what he called its “expansionist mindset.”
But he has also spoken of his admiration for China’s economic success, and despite his hardline nationalist reputation he moved quickly to engage with Beijing after taking office in May.
China, meanwhile, is keen to foster warmer ties with its western neighbour at a time of heightened tensions with Japan and several Southeast Asian nations over disputed sea territory.
But while the two sides have been at pains to stress co-operation ahead of the visit, much remains that divides them.
China has cultivated close ties with Pakistan, and its growing influence over other South Asian nations have sparked worries of a deliberate strategy to encircle India.
Xi arrived in India from the Maldives and Sri Lanka, where he announced large-scale investment and sought to boost defence ties.
Another irritant for China is the presence in India of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in the country since fleeing a failed uprising against Chinese rule of his homeland in 1959. A government of exiled Tibetans and tens of thousands of refugees are also based in northern India.
About 20 supporters of a free Tibet, mainly women, protested within a few metres of the building in New Delhi where Modi and Xi met, waving Tibetan flags and shouting: “We want justice.”
Police detained them after a few minutes.
Several other small pro-Tibet protests broke out across the city. Modi reiterated India’s position that it will not allow “anti-China” activities from Tibetans in the country.
