Middle road to Beijing

: Every time there is a Sino-Indian summit, the huge mismatch between the meagre results and the crescendo of noise — both positive and negative — that surrounds the talks comes into view. At the best of times the pace of political movement in bilateral relations has been glacial. This is compounded by an archaic formalism that governs the official ties between the two Asian giants. Even within the government, only the closed circle of China hands in the Foreign Office understands the coded bilateral communication. The chattering classes make up for the lack of a sustained effort to understand China by extreme views. On the left, there is a long tradition of injecting Sino-Indian relations with the romance of ‘anti-imperialism’. Morbid Sinophobes on the right suffer from an unending nightmare about New Delhi selling out to Beijing.

The happy exception to this unreal discourse comes from the Indian businessmen — small and big — who are traveling to China in droves and making things happen. They have expanded India’s bilateral trade with China to a stunning $38 billion last year from barely $300 million ten years ago. Taking cue from the emerging depth of the bilateral relationship, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrives in Beijing over the weekend, must break from the old tradition of furtive political engagement with China. Transparency must prevail over the constant temptation to posture for domestic audiences. The PM has no reason to be defensive about the fact that the boundary negotiations with China have stalled. Instead of trying to cook up ‘progress’, the Government must acknowledge the problems in finding mutually acceptable territorial concessions. Nor is it necessary for the PM to apologise for India’s warming ties with the US.

If he brushes aside India’s diplomatic obsession with drafting lofty joint declarations, Manmohan Singh could begin an important political conversation with his principal Chinese interlocutor — President Hu Jintao. As their economies grow rapidly and their national interests turn global, India and China will increasingly bump against each other in far corners. Sometimes, they might be on the same side; at others they will be competitors. Manmohan Singh and Hu must find ways to reduce the prospect for rivalry and expand the areas of cooperation. They might want to label this effort as the search for a ‘strategic partnership’. Words, however, are less important than the urgent adaptation to the new global dynamic of Sino-Indian relations.