Beyond NSG and Masood Azhar: India needs strategy for dialogue with China

There is a sense of déjà vu as Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar prepares for the strategic dialogue with Chinese Executive Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Yesu in Beijing on February 22. The signals from Beijing hold out no hope of China being receptive to India’s efforts for getting JeM chief Masood Azhar banned as a terrorist by the UN and becoming a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). These signals are akin to those put out in the days preceding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tashkent in June 2016 for a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping on the SCO Summit’s sidelines to press for India’s entry to the NSG. At that time, through official and party organs, Beijing made it clear that Modi meeting Xi would in no way help India’s push for membership of the NSG. New Delhi failed to read the message correctly and Modi went ahead with the visit, only to draw a blank.

Now, again, Beijing has intimated that China may not relent on the Masood Azhar issue or India’s case for NSG membership by pointing out that these are not bilateral, but multilateral, issues. The import of Beijing’s message is that the strategic dialogue – a new mechanism agreed upon in August last when Foreign Minister Wang Yi came calling on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj – would focus on bilateral issues; and, that New Delhi would be well advised not to entertain hopes of any breakthrough on the two issues that are high priority for India. Such a signal also suggests that Beijing is not overly enthusiastic about the efficacy and purpose of this new strategic dialogue.

Unlike in June last, this time the message was official: from none other than Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang at a media briefing on February 17. The two sides, Geng said, would have an “in-depth exchange of views on the international situation and other regional and global issues of mutual interest”. Pointing out that Azhar and NSG are in essence multilateral and not bilateral issuess, Geng ruled out any change in China’s stand on Azhar saying that China needed “solid evidence” to back India’s case for a ban. On NSG, Geng reiterated: “We stick to a two-step approach namely, first NSG members need to arrive at a set of principles for the entry of non-NPT state parties into NSG and then move forward on discussions of specific cases”. Regardless of how Beijing talks and what it chooses to focus on, India and China need to keep talking; and, New Delhi has to find ways to make Beijing budge from its hardline against India, including in the UN. For this to happen, Sino-Indian relations need to be brought out of the trough in which it is trapped now. Jaishankar acknowledged as much when he spoke in Mumbai on February 14 of the need to engage China more deeply at a time when relations are at an unusual low. This recognition is important because soon after Modi became Prime Minister, there were high expectations, on both sides, of bilateral ties leaping to the next level. To the contrary, relations on many tracks have not moved forward at all and there is a marked erosion of political trust resulting in a coolness that can adversely affect both countries.

Jaishankar drawing repeated attention to the necessity and importance of investing more in the relationship with Beijing at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi followed by the Gateway House Dialogue in Mumbai underscores that reviving the lost warmth in Sino-Indian ties is a policy priority desired by the Prime Minister. Besides, this implies that, perhaps, New Delhi has a new strategy to soften Beijing and alter the terms of engagement for a positive turn. Should that be so, Beijing must grasp the nettle and respond adequately. Instead of being stuck with stonewalling India on the Azhar and NSG issues, Beijing needs to come to the table with more enthusiasm for driving the bilateral relations to a new level. The strategic dialogue is an opportunity for rescuing the relationship from getting worse and, Beijing, as the host, has the greater responsibility for making it a success.

The author is an independent political and foreign affairs commentator based in New Delhi.