M A Hossain,
Sometimes, history moves not with bold declaration but with quiet recalibration. That’s what unfolded in Tianjin on August 31, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
This was no routine handshake. It was a calculated attempt to stabilize one of Asia’s most consequential—and combustible—relationships. Two nuclear-armed powers with a war in 1962, a bloody clash in Galwan just four years ago, and decades of mistrust sat across the table to test whether competition could be managed rather than allowed to spiral.
Modi’s first visit to China since 2018 carried strategic weight. Months of quiet diplomacy prepared the ground. The leaders discussed border tensions, trade, connectivity, and mutual mistrust. Modi pointed to concrete shifts: relative peace along the Himalayan frontier, the resumption of the politically charged Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, and plans to restart direct commercial flights—small steps, but telling ones.
Xi’s language was careful but deliberate. His acknowledgment that the destinies of nearly 2.8 billion people are intertwined reflected Beijing’s own strategic reality: persistent hostility with India weakens China’s regional posture at a time of slowing growth and a costly rivalry with Washington.
President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 50% on Indian goods jolted New Delhi. U.S. protectionism revealed how transactional the partnership is. Beijing seized the moment: its envoy in New Delhi denounced Washington’s “bullying,” offering rhetorical solidarity and subtle leverage for India in its delicate balancing act between America, Russia, and China.
Recent special representative talks yielded a tentative roadmap: reopening border trade routes, reviving military confidence-building, and restoring flights. These moves won’t solve the hardest problem—the contested border, but they can create habits of cooperation.
No breakthroughs were announced, but that may be the point. Measured, durable steps often succeed where grand gestures fail. Both Modi and Xi must cool tensions without appearing weak at home.
The Tianjin meeting underscored a simple truth: perpetual hostility between India and China is strategically unsustainable. Neither Washington nor Moscow can guarantee Asian stability if New Delhi and Beijing fail to do so themselves. It wasn’t reconciliation. But it was restraint—and, in geopolitics, sometimes that is how peace begins.
M.A. Hossain, Dhaka, Bangladesh
This article published at :
1. South China Morning Post, HK : 07 Sep,25
No comments:
Post a Comment