Like a beautiful woman, India wants to be wooed by all: Chinese media

BEIJING: It is rare for a country to be called “a beautiful woman” but an equally one-in-a hundred Chinese state media report on Monday likened India to one even if the compliment was showered grudgingly.

The title of the opinion piece in the influential tabloid Global Times was fairly bland: ‘Indo-US strategic distrust stalls LSA signing’. It was about the Logistics Support Agreement that India and the US were to sign during US defence secretary Ashton Carter’s visit last week, which could again be a fairly bland topic for the nonstrategic type.

But not clearly for the author; while trying to explain India’s independent foreign policy, why the LSA was not signed and New Delhi’s way of juggling of strategic relations with countries, in this case, the US and China, the author came out with the gem.

“Besides their traditional distrust, the speculation heralding a US-India alliance is also an obvious underestimation of India’s ambition for a role of swing-state between superpowers. The basic idea is that India would like to continue to be the most beautiful woman wooed by all men, notably the two strongest in the house, US and China,” the piece said.

Being published on a day when India’s defence minister Manohar Parrikar was in town must have been serendipitous. And, coincidentally, again the issue was discussed during Parrikar’s meetings with Chinese officials on matters of mutual interest.