It is dangling the carrot to China that it can continue doing business if it does not embarrass India on the battlefield.
by Sanjay Kapoor
On twitter, an active China watcher was quick to point out that while United States, Australia and Japan were critical in their joint statement against China’s aggressive intent to take over Taiwan, there was no India. Where really is India? Many western commentators are wondering why is the government of Narendra Modi is not critical of China’s attempt to browbeat Taiwan into submission over a controversial visit of US Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Taipei?
The answers to this beguiling puzzle are not easy. Is there one answer or many explanations as to why Indian government despite losing 20 soldiers in June 2020 and allegedly ceding so much territory in the cold deserts of Ladakh, chooses to remain silent. Interestingly, there have been no explanations from the government- not even background briefings from ministry of defense or external affairs- on its refusal to name China as an intruder or perpetrator of economic harm to the country. If signals have to be read, then a commentator could lose their way in the thicket of competing messaging.
For instance, India was the first country to block China’s very popular app, Tiktok. Later, 300 other apps were added in the banned list in an advice many believe came from a right wing think tank from Australia. Even US under Donald Trump or Australia under Prime Minister Scott Morrison went so far as to ban anything. Indian government did not confine itself to just the apps, it went further. It went after many Chinese telecom companies for what was claimed as a violation of its tax laws. First, telecom machinery provider, ZTE, was targeted. Thereafter, the famous company Huawei – headed by former PLA General – came in the arc of the attack. Both these companies that could participate in the 5G trials were kept out without being told that they were penalized for what happened in Galwan. Huawei still nurses hope of getting an approval from the Home Ministry, which sources claim, is not coming.
Indian tax authorities have particularly targeted mobile telephone company selling inexpensive smartphones. These include the hugely popular Xiaomi, Vivo. Tax authorities have frozen accounts and taken tough measures claiming that these companies have been repatriating profits abroad in a clandestine manner. Besides, these are also allegations of serious excise duty violations and many more. It’s intriguing why these objections have been raised now. Cognizant of the fact that Chinese telecom companies are government controlled and any raid on them in India would be seen as an attack on Beijing itself, is the Indian government using these raids on Xiaomi and Vivo as a bargaining chip to get a better land deal with China? The government in Delhi is aware that the Chinese smart phone companies have earned windfall profits during the last two years in India when their own market and that of others was shuttered down due to pandemic. Understandably, it is dangling the carrot to China that it can continue doing business here if it does not embarrass India on the battlefield. Chinese have a different reading of this New Delhi’s squeeze on the telecom sector. Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper, Global Times, has hinted at business lobbies dirtying the water. Others more vocal have made it clear that Modi government has succumbed to corporate pressure and trying to limit competition in the cheap smartphone segment. A junior telecom minister quoted by Bloomberg says that their (Chinese) market dominance has not been “on the basis of free and fair competition,”
Chinese sources hint at the active role of the Reliance’s Jio phone that is trying to enlarge its market with the help of government agencies. There are allegations that this messy telecom war is spilling over to the geostrategic space with Indian companies doing their bit to draw a wedge between India and China.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not succumbed to pressures to criticize China on salami slicing or any other issue. Interestingly, China was the only country that hosted him multiple times when he was experiencing a travel ban to US and other countries after Gujarat riots. It seems he has not forgotten their magnanimity. Ever since he came to power, Modi tried to improve relations with China till Galwan standoff took place. Despite the violent stand-off and the constant provocation by US based think tanks that suggests large scale intrusions by leaking satellite images, Modi has stood his ground – even after being persuaded to be part of an anti- China compact of Quad. India has seen its trade with China zoom to stratospheric heights. Other members of this four-member grouping would readily agree that India is its most reluctant and ambivalent member. Since the Galwan violence, which has seen extraordinary mobilization at the border, New Delhi has taken pains to tell China that it is not keen to be part of any military alliance against it. There have been series of meetings between Indian officials like NSA Ajit Doval and foreign minister S Jaishankar with their counterpart. A significant one took place when Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi visited New Delhi. Did he meet the PM? No one knows, but many observers claim that the trip was a turning point in many ways.
The 16 meetings that have taken place between the Commanders of the two countries may not have yielded much except tenuous peace, but informed sources claim that some kind of agreement has been reached between the two countries, which goes beyond the four-point consensus to ensure business as usual. Before Taiwan issue blew up, Sources would claim that an agreement had been arrived at between the two sides and it may be announced after the Chinese People’s Congress where President Xi Jinping is looking at a third term.
With US reasserting aggressively itself in the Asian continent and upturning One-China policy, it remains to be seen whether Washington would countenance a situation where its valuable ally and member of Quad, India, jettisons it for China at a time when the world is being reordered in the backdrop of the Ukraine war.
Sanjay Kapoor is a senior analyst and editor of the Delhi-based Hard News magazine. He is also the general secretary of the Editors Guild of India.
