{"id":39017,"date":"2018-05-03T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T20:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39017"},"modified":"2018-05-02T16:03:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T06:03:00","slug":"wuhan-dialogue-dismantling-old-structures-debating-reset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wuhan-dialogue-dismantling-old-structures-debating-reset\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wuhan dialogue: dismantling old structures and debating the \u2018reset\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s sudden visit to Wuhan for a two-day \u2018informal dialogue<\/a>\u2019 with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week revives questions in India about whether the mutual sincerity expressed by the two leaders could be transformed into something greater: a shared commitment to a new order, the \u2018Asian Century\u2019.<\/p>\n

While the appointment of senior diplomat Vijay Keshav Gokhale<\/a> as the new foreign secretary in January marked the beginning of New Delhi\u2019s attitudinal shift, the realisation that the relationship may be changing seems to have seeped into India\u2019s entire political spectrum. In an unusually short span of two months, beginning with the new foreign secretary\u2019s visit to Beijing<\/a> in February, India\u2019s National Security Advisor<\/a>, Defence Minister<\/a> and External Affairs Minister<\/a> have all visited China, demonstrating New Delhi\u2019s commitment to constructive engagement.<\/p>\n

While the existence of diversified channels of communications, bilateral dialogues and confidence-building measures have been instrumental in managing Sino\u2013Indian ties, New Delhi\u2019s latest outreach marks a systemic shift in these mechanisms\u2019 orientation. Rather than managing the relationship in a perceived zero-sum setting, the new approach envisions deepening interdependence.<\/p>\n

Visits to China by previous Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmoham Singh generated high expectations and ice-breaking agreements, but fell into the structural trap of managing bilateral irritants. In this context, Wuhan\u2019s informal setting aimed to \u2018reset ties<\/a>\u2019 without allowing complexities considered systemic to Sino\u2013Indian ties to short-circuit discussions.<\/p>\n

Optimism runs high because the potential benefits of cooperating also appear to be high. On a global scale, as leading economies and regional military powers India and China are insulated from external threats such as those faced by the United States or Russia. That relative freedom reinvigorates the idea of combining their efforts to shift the weight of global multipolarity in Asia\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

As the unfolding conflict in the Middle East<\/a> creates increasing tension between the\u00a0US and Russia, and where the political discourse signals the return of hard-power disputes, there\u2019s huge potential that India and China could redefine their bilateral relations, as well as the relations of blocs such the G-20, BRICS and even the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.<\/p>\n

Those organisations\u2014besides catering to the needs of the developing world\u2014could potentially defuse crises erupting in regional theatres as a result of Cold War\u2013style ructions. On the economic front, deeper and equitable ties with India could at least partly insulate China from the threat posed by America\u2019s unpredictable economic policies<\/a>, a potential that up to now has been left underexplored deliberately.<\/p>\n

The larger idea driving the summit was that rather than allowing existing rivalries to spiral into regional competition, New Delhi and Beijing could combine their mutual economic and geostrategic power to project greater influence in shaping the global security and geoeconomic architecture at a time when the relative decline of the\u00a0US has provided greater manoeuvring space.<\/p>\n

In the region as well, the summit came as a welcome break from the usual issues driving the two nations\u2019 foreign policymaking, where their unsettled border, Sino\u2013Pakistani ties and the Dalai Lama take precedence. The institutionalisation of those tensions even manifest themselves in global fora, such as India\u2019s quest for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the issue of Masood Azhar in the Security Council. It should be recalled that the first Sino\u2013Indian strategic dialogue, held in February\u00a02107, was a non-starter precisely because the Indian side focused on those irritants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As experience from the older approaches gives way, and as newer avenues of cooperation throw up new ideas while still allowing negotiations about the old irritants to follow their course, the way that the Sino\u2013Indian relationship is understood and conducted could be revolutionised. This has become clearer as Modi called for more informal summits<\/a>, giving precedence to personal diplomacy intended to bypass these old structural trappings.<\/p>\n

Modi\u2019s call to engage with President Xi on \u2018issues of bilateral and global importance<\/a>\u2019 set the template for this dialogue, and emerging details<\/a> have outlined the course on how both those bilateral and global issues would be dealt with. For example, the two leaders agreed that the old, ongoing irritants can be managed through existing mechanisms, but avoided getting into specifics. That marked a shift from the older approach.<\/p>\n

In a breakthrough announcement, both agreed to a joint economic project<\/a>\u00a0in Afghanistan, marking a diplomatic achievement for India in the context of the two countries\u2019 relations with Pakistan. As expected, the leaders discussed evolving global challenges, emphasising avenues of strategic and economic cooperation. The fact that they discussed efforts to overhaul international institutions\u2014aiming for \u2018open, multipolar pluralist participatory global economic order<\/a>\u2019\u2014goes a long way to explaining how discussions escaped falling hostage to the old irritants.<\/p>\n

That said, even if the summit ended on a high note with the acknowledgment of the benefits that lay ahead, some critical issues seem to have been temporarily forgotten in the warm glow of optimism. It isn\u2019t yet clear, for example, how the two nations would recalibrate their geostrategic objectives to align with the new consensus.<\/p>\n

To begin, how will the pledged \u2018new era\u2019 of cooperation accommodate India\u2019s opposition to China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), particularly given that New Delhi recently reaffirmed\u00a0its refusal to participate<\/a>\u00a0in the BRI.<\/p>\n

Second, as Chinese policies in the South China Sea are the focal point for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue\u2019s (Quad) revival, Indian participation in the Quad will require a tightrope walk by New Delhi, unless the very idea behind Quad\u00a02.0 undergoes a change.<\/p>\n

Third, with bilateral economic ties strained after India\u2019s trade deficit with China crossed the $50\u00a0billion threshold<\/a>, how the two nations envision reshaping the global economic order remains to be answered.<\/p>\n

In other words, having identified the path of cooperation, success depends on the strategic overhauls that lie ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s sudden visit to Wuhan for a two-day \u2018informal dialogue\u2019 with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week revives questions in India about whether the mutual sincerity expressed by the two leaders …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":798,"featured_media":39018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,69],"class_list":["post-39017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-india"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Wuhan dialogue: dismantling old structures and debating the \u2018reset\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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