China-India Geopolitics: News & Discussions

[Zsari]

Published April 22, 2017
SOURCE: PTI

China today said it would like India to be part of the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) that seeks to link Asia with Europe, adding if concerns of sovereignty over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was a hurdle, they would be “resolved.”

“India is an important partner of the Belt and Road Initiative. It was, remains and will be so in the future,” Liu Jinsong, minister at the Embassy of China in India, said.

“Without hesitation, the Chinese side sincerely invites the Indian side to join many BRI forums, including the Forum to be held next month,” Liu said.

“If this (concerns over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) is the only reason that affects Indian friends’ will to join the Belt and Road Initiative, this concern could be resolved,” he said.

He was addressing a conference on “The Belt and Road Initiative: India’s perspectives on China’s ambitious plan for infrastructural connectivity in Asia, Africa and Europe,” organised by Observer Research Foundation here.

“Transportation is the basis of CPEC, and connectivity between China and Pakistan will unavoidably pass through Azad Kashmir area,” he said.

“China has no intention to interfere in territorial and sovereignty disputes between India and its neighbours,” he said, adding that China’s position on the Kashmir issue has not changed either.

“President Xi Jinping will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation from May 14 to 15 in Beijing. Leaders of 28 countries and the UN Secretary-General will attend the Forum,” he said.

Referring to the debate on whether India should join the Belt and Road Initiative, he said, “India has always been on the Belt and Road”, and cited travels of explorers from both the countries.

“The Belt and Road Initiative is an inheritance, revival and upgrade of the ancient Silk Route,” he said.

The two countries should resume common efforts and work to revive the Silk Route, he said.

“In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which aims to provide financial support for infrastructure construction in countries along the BRI routes,” he said.

“India gave a positive response to China’s proposal and held the second round of negotiation working group meeting in Mumbai. India contributed 8 billion US dollars and became the second largest shareholder at the AIIB,” he said.

“Over 40 countries have signed the BRI cooperation agreements with China. At the Forum next month, another over 40 countries and international organisations will discuss and sign cooperation agreements with China,” he said.

“China and India, each with over 1.3 billion people, are still not connected by railways,” he said.

There are only 40-plus direct flights between the two countries each week, considerably less than 1,000 direct flights per week between China and South Korea, he said.

Liu also referred to reports of a 61-year-old postman journeying through the Nathula Pass to exchange mail bags every day for 25 years, calling him “a civil envoy” promoting China-India friendship and connectivity.

Lol. This is like the US posturing to the Chinese ask if they want to join the TPP.

 

[oprih]

China is just doing charity works, indians should be thankful that their sorry excuse of a country is even considered to be included to this grand project by China.

 

[StraightShooter]

CPEC pass through Azad Kashmir not IOK. You consider India will fully control Kashmir ? Sorry, no chance. There's no military solution for Kashmir issue. The status quo will last for a very long time, probably 50 years, or even more than 100 years if India still unite as a single nation. Both sides won't compromise. So India will keep Kashmir people poor and make them revolt to against you? Make IOK prosperous is the only way to make IOK happily stay together with you, otherwise it's like a sword stabbing into you, you will be bleeding all the time. They will eventually split from India. I know you won't listen to me anyway.

This is like asking China does not control Taiwan so why does China make such a big fuss about one-China policy.

If China disregards Indian interests in Kashmir, India would disregard Chinese in interests in Tibet and Taiwan.

China is just doing charity works, indians should be thankful that their sorry excuse of a country is even considered to be included to this grand project by China.

Thank you, China

 

[Navin A]

CPEC pass through Azad Kashmir not IOK. You consider India will fully control Kashmir ? Sorry, no chance. There's no military solution for Kashmir issue. The status quo will last for a very long time, probably 50 years, or even more than 100 years if India still unite as a single nation. Both sides won't compromise. So India will keep Kashmir people poor and make them revolt to against you? Make IOK prosperous is the only way to make IOK happily stay together with you, otherwise it's like a sword stabbing into you, you will be bleeding all the time. They will eventually split from India. I know you won't listen to me anyway.

Let's just wait and watch what will happen to China in the coming decade! tall claims and yet futile stance, China's sinister plan and expansionist mindset are clear. You want to make it hell for India, we will make it hell for you in Tibet. The day will come when India will reverse its stand and call Tibet a free country & formally recognize the government in exile, will be the day China will start to mend its ways.

For the moment have fun dealing with the current topic at hand, which is, how to save SCS & North Korea from nuclear war, preventing the whole of the south-east Asian region plunging into a Nuclear hellhole.

China is just doing charity works, indians should be thankful that their sorry excuse of a country is even considered to be included to this grand project by China.

Ah yeah, Charity... No thanks, we will use the same proverb the Pakistani's go by, which is we would rather eat grass!

What the differences with present situation India is in or out?

Definitely out!

 

[StraightShooter]

Central Asia needs CPEC for sea routes.

Not necessarily.

 

[samsara]

India’s China Policy Off Target, Says Modi’s Mandarin-Speaking ‘Guided Missile’

Delhi’s go-to guy for talking to Beijing is one of the few Indian leaders who openly advocate closer ties. Maverick he may be, but there’s reason to believe he’s not alone

By Debasish Roy Chowdhury - SCMP - 20 November 2016

Subramanian Swamy delivers a lecture on the freedom fighter Vinayak Sawarkar. (Photo: AFP)​

“Indian and Chinese brains must be very differently wired,” China historian John Fairbank quipped to Subramanian Swamy one wintry morning in Harvard circa 1963. “I have never seen an Indian who has managed to learn Chinese.”

That little joke was enough to get young Swamy to take up the challenge of learning Mandarin. Having finished his PhD in economics in one and a half years, he had plenty of time on hand. He learnt Mandarin in six months, he says, after which Harvard asked him to teach a course in Chinese economic history.

Modi’s key aide blames poor planning for India’s currency crisis

Thus started the 76-year-old maverick parliamentarian’s long association with China, marking him out as a rare Indian politician with a deep understanding of China and extensive contacts in China’s power circles. In the course of the 40-odd years in public life that would follow, Swamy would earn a reputation as a crusader against corruption and unpredictable muckraker and litigant par excellence. He played a major role in the court case against the multibillion-dollar mobile telephony licensing scandal in the last Congress-led government, which paved the way for the rise of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014 and gave him a cult following among BJP cadres. He is now doggedly pursuing an embezzlement lawsuit against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul.

Subramanian Swamy finished his PhD in economics in 18 months – then learnt Mandarin in six. Photo: AFP​

But his deep China connections would also make him a go-to guy in Delhi to communicate with China. In 1978, he was the first Indian politician to be sent to China to restart dialogue after the 1962 border war that saw all relations broken off. And it was his meeting with Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in 1981 that would prompt China to reopen the sacred Kailash-Manasarovar route in Tibet (西藏) for Hindu pilgrims.

When Xi meets Modi, a little less love this time

A straight talker, Swamy is one of the very few Indian leaders who openly advocate better relations with China. In a country where China is widely viewed with suspicion and the political class is wary of appearing even remotely pro-China, Swami’s China-friendly worldview was never going to be easy. But, of late, it seems to have got even tougher. After years of rapid rapprochement, there are signs the two Asian giants may be drifting apart. India resents China’s forays into the Indian Ocean, blames it for blocking its entry into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group, and for siding with Pakistan. China has been carefully watching India flirt with the South China issue and its overtures to the US and Japan.

“At this point, the Chinese are only interested in one thing: are you independent or not? Are you joining the US axis or are you on your own? We have failed this test,” Swamy told This Week in Asia last week.

In May, Swamy was in China on a 10-day visit at the invitation of a think-tank of China’s foreign ministry. As he does on his yearly trips to China, he met senior leaders, exchanged views and took the pulse. “We think Indians are sentimental, but the Chinese are even more so. And right now, they are not happy with us,” said Swamy. “I have conveyed this back home, I have made it clear to my government and my party that we have no business in the South China Sea. It’s a dispute between the parties involved. Why are we being dragged into it?”

It’s plain-speaking like this that makes the articulate Harvard economist stand out in a milieu of mostly underwhelming politicians. In recent days, he has called India’s venerable tycoon Ratan Tata “most corrupt”, defied popular mood to campaign against “rock star” central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, has called Rahul Gandhi “uneducated”, and last week let fly at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for making a hash of Modi’s decision to replace high-denomination bank notes with new ones.

Subramanian Swamy with the yoga guru and anti-corruption crusader Baba Ramdev. Photo: AFP​

The finance minister is a pet hate since it’s no secret that Swamy would rather have that job. On a recent trip to Beijing, when Jaitley switched from Indian politicians’ preferred garb of kurta-pajama, Swamy tweeted to his 3.3 million followers: “BJP should direct our ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie they look like waiters.”

Neville Maxwell discloses document revealing India provoked China into 1962 border war

Potshots like that have often left his own party squirming and reinforce his image as a loose cannon. But more careful students of New Delhi’s Byzantine politics believe Swamy has not been acting on his own in his battles against Rajan or the Gandhi family, or in his current drive to build a Hindu temple at a disputed site where a mosque was torn down by Hindu fanatics in 1992. In every instance, they say, his action benefits the ruling dispensation without it having to take a politically inconvenient position. With friends across party lines, Swamy is, after all, the ultimate Delhi insider – hardly the profile of a lone crusader. More a “guided missile”, as Outlook magazine put it in a recent cover story.

But if his words and deeds do indeed reflect the thinking of his party, then China-India ties aren’t probably the wreck they seem at the moment.

Congress Party supporters burn an effigy ofSubramanian Swamy during a demonstration in New Delhi in 2001. Swamy had called for a probe into Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi and her family's alleged links
with a foreign intelligence agency. Photo: AFP​

Swamy’s views about the 1962 war, a sensitive issue for Indians, who hold China responsible for the war, may seem sacrilegious but are known to be shared by many in the party – secretly. “The border clash was avoidable but [the then prime minister Jawaharlal] Nehru had received encouragement from the US to take advantage of China’s misery from the drought and famine,” said Swamy.

On the Dalai Lama, an extremely touchy issue for the Chinese, Swamy is just as blunt. “He must discontinue this political apparatus [in India]. As a religious leader he is warmly welcome in India but the present dispensation [his government in exile in India] is an obstacle to good relations just as is China’s lenient attitude to Pakistan giving sanctuary to trained Islamic terrorists.”

Border dispute an obstacle to building trust between China and India

Much to Beijing’s chagrin, New Delhi has just cleared the Dalai Lama’s first visit to an area that China claims as its own territory. The move came on the heels of India’s failure to garner Chinese support for both its entry into the nuclear suppliers’ club and securing a United Nations ban on a Pakistan-sheltered terrorist wanted in India.

Swamy’s views may seem to be at odds with the official Indian position. But to those given to reading the tea leaves of regional geopolitics, the hardening stance on Tibet could well be a sign of India doubling down on a key bargaining chip with China. In which case, it would be safe to bet that Swami is not talking through his hat.

Debasish Roy Chowdhury

Debasish Roy Chowdhury is the Deputy Editor of This Week in Asia. Winner of multiple Hong Kong News Awards and the SOPA 2016 Award for Excellence in Explanatory Reporting, Debasish has worked and lived in Kolkata, Sao Paulo, Hua Hin, Bangkok, Beijing and now Hong Kong

 

[Mista]

“Indian and Chinese brains must be very differently wired,” China historian John Fairbank quipped to Subramanian Swamy one wintry morning in Harvard circa 1963. “I have never seen an Indian who has managed to learn Chinese.”

He should come to Singapore. There are many Indian elders who can speak even the Hokkien and Teochew dialect.

 

[TaiShang]

China dismisses, India panics over prospect of Chinese ‘spy pigeon’
13:54, May 24, 2017

The pigeon was caught with Chinese tags in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh. (HT Photo)

A pigeon with a tag bearing numbers written in Chinese has thrown Indian authorities into a flutter, as fears spread that the feathered prisoner could be a Chinese spy. The Chinese public, meanwhile, has ridiculed the accusation as groundless and ludicrous.

The pigeon, which was reportedly caught in the disputed border region between China and India on May 20, has become a full-blown suspect of Chinese espionage. According to the Hindustan Times, the bird was found with an inscribed tag on its left leg.

This is not the first time that a pigeon has been singled out by India authorities as a potential perpetrator of foreign espionage. In 2016, a white pigeon was caught and caged by Indian security forces in a border district adjoining Kashmir, as it was suspected of having Pakistani "links.”

Such seizures have been ridiculed across Chinese social and traditional media. Many have suggested that, instead of punishing an innocent bird, Indian authorities should first deal with the country's security shortcomings.

“After reading the information circulating online, I would say that the bird might be a homing pigeon participating in a contest. Pigeons used for contests are normally tagged with rings bearing numbers and characters; I see no reason for Indian authorities to panic about it,” one netizen wrote on Sina Weibo.

“Despite its large population and territory, India remains a country without a shred of security. Maybe it should start to trust its neighbors, rather than making groundless accusations,” wrote another.

@Jlaw , @Han Patriot , @AndrewJin , @GS Zhou

 

[powastick]

These days we use thumb drives like Kim Jong Nam.

 

[Han Patriot]

Pigeons? Seriously? We could just use DJI drones for that...LOL

 

[kris]

Does pigeons live in that harsh climate??

 

[grey boy 2]

Boy, Indians

 

[SBUS-CXK]

Does pigeons live in that harsh climate??

Think about it. China's Beidou satellite navigation system is enough to cover Asia.

What can dove do?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

BBC News - Indian Army mistook Jupiter and Venus for Chinese spy drones for 6 months

 

[grey boy 2]

BBC News - Indian Army mistook Jupiter and Venus for Chinese spy drones for 6 months

Thanks for the entertaining reminder bro, i need it badly for my tough day