Modi Loved China, Until He Didn’t
NEW DELHI — Narendra Modi once looked up to China. As a business-friendly Indian state leader, he traveled there repeatedly to attract investment and see how his country could learn from its neighbor’s economic transformation. China, he said, has a “special place in my heart.” Chinese officials cheered on his march to power as that of “a political star.”
But not long after Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, China made clear that the relationship would not be so easy. Just as he was celebrating his 63rd birthday by hosting China’s leader, Xi Jinping, hundreds of Chinese troops were intruding on India’s territory in the Himalayas, igniting a weekslong standoff.
A decade later, ties between the world’s two most populous nations are nearly broken. Continued border incursions flared into a ferocious clash in 2020 that threatened to lead to all-out war. Mr. Modi, a strongman who controls every lever of power in India, appears uncharacteristically powerless in the face of the rupture with China.
In India’s own backyard in South Asia, China has used its vast resources to challenge Indian pre-eminence, courting partners through infrastructure deals and gaining access to strategic ports.
More broadly, China and India are vying to lead the developing nations of the global south. When India hosted the Group of 20 summit meeting last year, Mr. Xi skipped it. China has also been a roadblock in India’s campaign to gain a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
India’s estrangement with China has provided an opening for Western nations to expand ties with New Delhi, a distressing development for Beijing. India signed a series of deals with
Beijing poses an obstacle to India’s global ambitions.
the United States last year to strengthen military cooperation. India has also drawn closer to the other two members of the so-called Quad, Australia and Japan, as the group works to counter China’s projection of power.
But China continues to expose Indian insecurities. The Chinese economy is about five times the size of India’s, and China remains India’s second-biggest trade partner (after the United States), exporting about six times as much to India as it imports. China spends more than three times what India does on its military.
The Indian military, which has long struggled to modernize, is now forced to be conflict-ready on two fronts, with China to India’s east and archrival Pakistan to its west.
Tens of thousands of troops from both India and China remain on a war footing high in the Himalayas four years after the deadly skirmishes broke out in the disputed Eastern Ladakh region, where both countries have been building up their military presence. Negotiations have failed to bring disengagement.
Mr. Modi has had to prioritize billions of dollars for border infrastructure and military upgrades as India still struggles to cover the basic needs of its 1.4 billion people. His government is drawing up plans to repopulate hundreds of border villages as a second line of defense against the constant threat of Chinese encroachment.
S. Jaishankar, Mr. Modi’s external affairs minister, said recently that there were “no easy answers” to the concerns posed by India’s aggressive neighbor. “They are changing, we are changing,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “How do we find an equilibrium?”