[Modi & Xi]

New Delhi is all decked up in Indian calender art aesthetic — an eyesore to many. The G-20 summit will crown the many ministerial meetings on numerous subjects (energy, terrorism, etc) held in the past few months, imaginatively, in different cities all over the country to showcase regional cultures and artifacts. These meets were well received. The summit hosted by India scheduled for next weekend (September 9-10) follows Narendra Modi’s chairing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (virtual) summit in July this year, and is expected to be the highpoint of the Prime Minister’s “be everywhere” diplomacy. To be seen is to be recognised, and the G-20 Meet has been targeted by Modi as the event that elevates him to the pantheon of the ‘Big 4’ (the other three being Biden, Putin, Xi).

So, trust the Chinese President-for-life, Xi Jinping, to rain on Modi’s parade. And then pour odium on it.

At the Johannesburg BRICS (15th) summit, Modi and Xi met on the sidelines and vowed speedily to disengage forces on the disputed border. However, the military level talks at the Lieutenant General and Major General fora, predictably, got nowhere with the PLA unwilling to move from its blocking position on the Depsang Plains and permit Indian forces to patrol Indian areas. Half a week later, Beijing issued its “standard map” that showed all of Arunachal and Aksai Chin within China. The release of the map on the eve of the G-20 summit was less because it said anything new by way of China’s expansionist revisionist territorial claims than as an “in your face” insult to Modi guaranteed, Zhongnanhai hoped, to provoke a lot of negativity in the host nation, roil the atmosphere, and pitch Modi’s big moment into the ditch.

The Chinese map has upset countries across the board. The Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea littoral protested the sea expanse covered by the 9-dash line as an abomination, as Delhi had done the Chinese notions of the Line of Actual Control. Beijing did not spare its quasi-ally Russia either. Notwithstanding an accord signed around 2002-2003 to share control of the disputed Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, the map shows the entire island as Chinese territory. 1969 witnessed armed contestation for this island.

Xi followed up this show of his regime’s tactless intemperance by first hinting and then confirming he would not be attending the Meet. With Russian President Vladamir Putin too pulling out as he had done from the BRICS summit, Xi’s decision was a gut punch to Modi’s plans for showcasing this big bash with all the world leaders in attendance, as curtain raiser to next year’s general elections. India has not used Modi’s participation in various summits as leverage, as Xi and Putin have routinely done. Our PM seems happy to go to anyplace he is invited for anything.

Not satisfied with dumping on India, Xi’s minions presently meeting in a resort in Manesar (outside Delhi) with other G-20 counterparts to stitch together a consensus document by September 6 for release as Joint Communique at the end of the confab on September 10, the Chinese reps prevented common views form emerging on other contentious issues. The Ukraine war is the principal issue widening the rift within the G-20. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister standing in for Putin at the summit, has demanded that his country’s viewpoint be reflected in the document if there’s any mention of the Ukraine conflict. The US and the West are just as adamant in desiring that Moscow and Putin be held accountable for the supposed human rights excesses perpetrated by the Russian military. Having earlier wagged a finger at Putin — “This is not an era for war”, Modi finds what he considered a fairly innocuous remark to have snowballed into Russian suspicions of Delhi increasingly doing things to please Washington. It has motivated Moscow to stick by its demand even more. Xi backs Putin and between them will highlight by their absence, that China and Russia may be outnumbered at this forum, but that Modi is a prevaricator and unreliable as partner — the very conclusion, ironically, the US and the West have been urging Delhi to avoid giving the impression of because of its noncommital stance on Ukraine!

The condition of no give by either side on Ukraine has been compounded by a similar chasm growing between the two sides on the “carbon peaking” matter. Except here India, China and the Global South are nagging the US and the West for bigger investments in technologies, schemes, and financial outlays to “green” the environment. Absent a consensus, the final document will have no definite financial commitments by Western countries nor timelines to achieve carbon emission minimization standards, with China, more eager than India, to hold the West’s feet to the fire on these Climate matters.

But Xi did more, stabbed Modi deep in his back. Beijing has taken umbrage — and this is particularly hurtful to Modi because he planned to make “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” — all the world is one family, that he has evoked time and again all over the world, at the Indian government’s making this the underlying theme of this G-20 summit. The Chinese have rejected this sanskrit phrase-concept whole, and asked that it not be mentioned anywhere in any Summit document! Of course, Modi has repeated it endlessly to emphasize the core of his approach to inter-state relations, stressing a uniquely benign view of the international system, and of India’s role in it. Beijing, however, wants none of it, because it sees in this construct a competitor to China’s own Tianxia system of “order under the heaven” and, being strategic minded, fears that universalising and legitmating this idea would diplomatically advantage India. Modi may reiterate the phrase in his G-20 address but, if Beijing succeeds, it will have no G-20 agency.

Combine this with the possibility that the G20 “sherpas” in Manesar will fail to paper over the division on a host of issues, and we have the very real possibility that there will be no Joint Communique — which hasn’t happened in G20 summits in recent memory, and will be perceived as something of a debacle for Modi who has so far adroitly straddled the divides.

However the summit turns out, India’s non-reaction to China’s cartographic aggression which will be seen as symbolizing India and Modi’s timidity will be the subject of hushed talk between visiting heads of government and their retinues. China is the common concern of great many countries, and especially Asian states on the frontlines facing an inordinately assertive proto-hegemon.

So, what should Modi and the Indian government do to recover for the country a bit of its elan and to repair its reputation that China has tarnished?

Firstly, treat Xi’s stand-in — Premier Li Qiang with the barest protocol and no red carpert, and absoultely no ceremony, with, perhaps, an Under-Secretary at the China Desk in MEA if not someone even lower in the ranks, to greet a disembarking Li, and his plane parked in some remote part of Palam airport. Secondly, Modi should avoid any contact with Li and barely recognise his presence at the summit, and in the inevitable photograph of the summiteers, place him in the last row at one end!

Thirdly, and this is the big deal — something the Indian government has apparently not learned after dealing with Beijing going on 70 years — fight cartographic fire with like fire. Having issued the map, Beijing proceeded to goad Modi and India. The map, Beijing claimed, was no big deal and advised India not to “over-interpret” it, in other words, not to get worked up about it. Whether this injunction against over-interpreting referred to the map itself or to the fact of its release, insultingly, on the eve of the G-20 summit, was not clear. In either case, it was a resounding public slap to Modi’s face — after all it is the Indian PM who has been solicitous, doing the running after Xi gig (and not the other way around). The Ministry of External Affairs reacted in the worst possible way — its spokesman called such map changing shenanigans an “old [Chinese] habit”, thereby derating the significance of the event. After all, if something is called an “old habit”, the person or entity charged with it is painted as a cantankerous sort of acquaintance bent on mischief whose bad behaviour is tolerated because, well, he can’t help himself! It is thusly that Xi has staged his repudiation of the Modi regime and its desire for an amicable border solution.

With the offending Chinese standard map showing Arunachal and Aksai Chin as constituent regions of China, India should during the two days of the summit upload a map of Asia showing Tibet in a colour different than the one for mainland China. And likewise depict Taiwan as an independent country, keeping in mind that Beijing vehemently protested the visit August 8 by three Indian retired Armed Services Chiefs of Staff to Taipei. It is Xi’s Taiwan sensitivity that Delhi needs to trample on. Hereafter, the ‘One China’ concept, moreover, should be no part of Indian foreign policy at least not until Beijing hews to the ‘One India’ concept inclusive of all Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Northern Areas, which idea Modi should articulate, perhaps, at the plenary session of the G20 summit

Whether anybody in the PMO/MEA/GOI likes it or not, the tension Xi has deliberately stirred in Sino-Indian relations will be Banquo’s ghost at the G-20 grand dinner.

Actually, the map is only the latest show of China’s contempt for India, and Modi in particular. Recall how Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai’s foreign minister, visiting Beijing in February 1979 was greeted — the PLA pointedly launched its military operation against India’s friend — Vietnam. But the Vietnamese being Vietnamese the irregulars that first came into contact with the advancing PLA Group Army were actually quite enough to teach the Chinese a lesson — they so bloodied the lead PLA formations, the great helmsman, Dengxiaoping, who recognized the drubbing for what it was, simply declared victory and got the PLA the hell out of Vietnam! It is a solution the Indian military can’t even dream of.