Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 23-25 State visit to the US was reminiscent of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s official visit to Washington during September 15-17, 2000. It had been preceded by Bill Clinton’s trip to India earlier that year—the first such US presidential visit in 22 years.
Foreign affairs are instant history nowadays, and Clinton’s and Vajpayee’s back-to-back trips happened 26 years ago. More than a quarter century having elapsed, the intricate details of these visits would today be remembered for drawing any comparison mostly by those who have a professional interest in diplomacy.
Indian public discussions and analyses about Xi’s talks in the White House have so far largely celebrated that this State visit did not produce any breakthroughs or many tangible results. This is in line with popular identification in recent years with India’s illusorily macho foreign policy. Such an attitude puts down anything about China or Pakistan, and casts negatively everything about these two perceived “enemy” countries. This does India and Indians a disservice, because correctly understanding and analysing activities and initiatives in the immediate neighbourhood is critical to India’s own welfare and success.
Vajpayee’s visit 26 years ago was exactly like Xi’s latest travel to Washington in several ways. India was then under an array of sanctions from the 1998 nuclear tests. Barring specialists, most Indians could not have been expected to understand that the sanctions were mandatory and automatic under the Glenn Amendment of the US Congress, read with two other related laws. Only a few of these penalties were waived—through hurried Congressional amendments—as a prelude to Clinton’s trip. Vajpayee rejected arguments even within his party that he should not go to Washington while India was still under sanctions and went ahead with the trip.
Just as Xi did last month. Although one week prior to the Chinese President’s arrival in the White House, US President Donald Trump had signed into law an imperious legislation that authorises 100 percent tariffs on China—and on India—for buying Russian energy.
Like Vajpayee then, Xi is now convinced that there is more to gain by meeting the US President and bilateral relations in the future could not be held hostage to disputes and disagreements anchored in pride alone. Unlike India, China has a closed political system. So, one can only speculate if there was opposition within the Communist Party of China (CPC) to Xi’s visit under the shadow of new penalties, just as in Vajpayee’s BJP.
A straw in the wind was the presence of top CPC leaders on the Chinese side at the State dinner in honour of Xi. It was only when the White House released the guest list for the dinner that those outside the official framework on both sides realised that Xi had brought along party apparatchiks as part of his delegation to Washington. The White House’s guest details listed these apparatchiks as belonging to the CPC and not the Chinese government.
Conceivably conceding to the party’s supremacy over the government, Xi wore a Mao suit at the black-tie dinner, as did the CPC officials. If Xi was under flak from the party—like Vajpayee was—bringing the ‘comrades’ to see for themselves what was at stake in the bilateral engagement and donning a Mao suit—which is high on symbolism—was diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. The importance of these symbols appears to have totally escaped attention in India, where the bandhgala national dress has been devalued by its routine overuse, unlike China’s Mao suits.
Instead of rubbishing the Trump-Xi talks as inconsequential, Indians must introspect on Xi’s gestures—like in the bygone Mao Zedong era—and ask themselves if every action of their own leadership has a time and place while dealing with the only superpower today.
The Vajpayee-Clinton reciprocal visits laid the foundations of today’s India-US relations. Their successors, Manmohan Singh and George W Bush, built on those foundations to a point where the US became India’s foremost foreign policy priority. So will Trump’s May 13-15 State visit to China and Xi’s return visit last month turn out to be, as events unfold during the rest of their presidencies. Two more meetings between them are planned this year: one in Shenzhen next month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting and another at the Miami G20 summit in December.
The best brains in India ought to be concerned that these meetings could produce a Group of Two comprising China and the US, a G2 that India is hopelessly short of any leverage to prevent. Trump being a man of grandiose plans—most of which fall by the wayside because of presidential limitations—he could even conceive of a G3, which includes Russia if there is progress towards peace in Ukraine. Trump’s soft corner for Russian President Vladimir Putin nearly cut short his first presidential term. Of course, the biggest imponderable in all this will be the outcomes of the mid-term US Congressional elections on November 3.
Perceptive Indian strategic thinkers inside and outside the government now concede, mostly privately, that New Delhi made a huge error in hitching its US wagon to the idea that India could be a counterweight to China. That house of cards has collapsed in Trump’s second presidential term.
Xi’s recent summit with Trump entirely papered over their differences. These frictions could escalate, more so if Democrats gain control when the 120th US Congress convenes in January—if only because Democrats want to derail every aspect of the present White House foreign policy. India should not mistake such escalations for dead-ends. US-China dependence on each other will make turnarounds inevitable even as advances in technology pressure both sides to de-escalate.
India has options, though not easy ones. A much-needed fundamental reassessment of external affairs and national security priorities will not be easy for a government which has convinced its people that it is cocksure of itself. A resurgent opposition and seeds of a youth awakening make such reassessments more difficult than at any time in the last dozen years.
K P Nayar | Strategic analyst
(Views are personal)
(kpnayar@gmail.com)
