China’s high-profile Silk Road initiative, whose success could well depend on active regional participation has begun to resonate in the boundary dialogue between Beijing and New Delhi ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China next month.
“I think the two governments are thinking of breakthroughs on the border issue in the coming five years or ten years. From our side, I think this government would like to take full advantage of Mr. Modi’s strong [government] for the two sides to address this ticklish issue,” said Hu Shisheng of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
Dr. Hu hoped that Mr. Modi would get another term in office so that there is a leadership overlap of the two governments. “Then they will find some ways to finally to get rid of this [problem].”
In Beijing’s think-tank land, there is an increasing recognition of a symbiotic link between the success of the “belt and road” initiative, which is critical for the revival of the Chinese economy and the country’s peaceful rise, and stable ties with India.
The Chinese are anxious that India, Japan, Russia and the United States — four major countries that are impacted by the Chinese initiative of the land based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), and the oceanic Maritime Silk Road (MSR) — do not spoil the party.
“It’s fine if you do not participate [in the Silk Road projects]. But if you block it, prevent it, it will become problematic. But I don’t think India will do that,” observed Dr. Hu.
The Chinese academic’s optimism was based on India’s decision to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), which was likely to take up infrastructure projects in the Asian circle of the “one belt one road”-- a coinage that integrates the land and sea component of the Silk Road. Besides, New Delhi was also partnering Beijing in the New Development Bank, which, oriented towards the “global south” would be run by the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping.
He added that Chinese domestic banks such as the Exim Bank and the China Development Bank could pitch in to fund projects undertaken by Indian companies in the subcontinent or Indian Ocean rim countries “so as to make India relaxed,” and encourage it to support the MSR.
Keen on allaying apprehensions, the Chinese say they would be comfortable if India’s Mausam project and Spice Route blueprint, as well as the New Silk Road Initiative announced earlier by Hillary Clinton, then U.S. Secretary of State, was interfaced with China’s “one belt one road” plan.
Many think-tanks, with varying affiliations, are exuding confidence about making progress on the border issue. At the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), vice-chairman of the strategic think-tank, Zhu Da, compared the Sino-Indian boundary dispute with the phased resolution of the border row between China and the Soviet Union, and then Russia, which had triggered a military conflict between the two countries in 1969.
“The situation [between China and India] cannot be worse than we had in the boundary areas between China and Russia, where one million forces faced each other”. However, 10 years of efforts, embedded with a string of confidence building measures yielded the demarcation of the boundary, which is now peaceful and tranquil.
