Beijing, September 18 – As Xi Jinping began his three-day visit to India, the Chinese State media said his government’s recent outreach to Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “a long-term strategy”, and one that would go beyond the immediate investment deals that will be the focus of the coming visit.
Although the Chinese President’s trip to Gujarat and New Delhi is only the last stop of a long tour that saw Xi visit Tajikistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, the India leg of the trip – and particularly Xi’s emerging rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi – has received much attention in the Chinese media.
The Global Times, a tabloid known for its strong views published by the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, indicated in an editorial on Wednesday that China’s charm offensive towards Modi – evident in recent moves such as dispatching a high-level envoy days after Modi’s election – was a long term strategy, and unrelated to China’s relations with other countries.
“China has a long-term strategy to develop friendly cooperation with India, rather than seeking short-term gain. For us, the Sino-Indian relationship, with its own strategic merits, doesn’t have to be associated with ties with other major powers. Rationality and vision dictate the development of bilateral ties,” the newspaper said. In pics: Modi plays host to Xi Jinping | Xi Jinping, Modi stroll on Sabarmati riverfront
The paper said Japanese expectations of cultivating an anti-China alliance with India would be belied by the visit. “When Modi visited Japan early this month, floods of rhetoric such as “joining hands to counter China,” emanated from Japanese public opinion, to which Modi gave a rational response at the time.
Now it seems that this mentality from many Japanese is very wide of the mark,” the newspaper said, adding that good relations with China would also benefit India as “more advantages and initiatives can [be had] when dealing with the US and Japan.”
In another commentary, Zhao Minghao, a scholar with the Centre for International and Strategic Studies at the elite Peking University, echoed a widely prevalent view in China that Modi had
“displayed great interest in imitating China’s economic development model to create more jobs and attract more foreign investment through the development of infrastructure and manufacturing”.
“Compared with the US and Japan,” he argued, “China shows more understanding of the urgent needs of South Asian countries for an economic boost.” With India and China expected to announce in the coming three days as many as 20 deals in fields ranging from setting up new industrial parks and railways to co-producing films,
the focus in China has been very much on the economic, with no mention in the largely State-controlled media over recent differences over transgressions along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC).
-INDIA TODAY
