BRICS (INDIA-CHINA)

Bilateral Meeting between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping

• This was their third bilateral in four months.

• Mr. Modi made the most direct attempt by India to pin China to a commitment after it
decided to put a technical hold on Azhar’s designation at the UN, and declared that
India and China “cannot afford” to have differences on terrorism, as no country is
immune from terrorism.

• Mr. Xi raised other outstanding issues including addressing the trade imbalance
between both countries, even as both leaders noted that investment and trade had
registered a “significant increase”.

• President Xi said we should strengthen our security dialogue and partnership. PM Modi
said that both India and China had been victims of terrorism which was a scourge
afflicting the entire region.

• Pakistan remained the elephant in the room, since New Delhi believes that Beijing
is stonewalling on both issues — Azhar’s listing at the UN sanctions committee and
India’s entry into the NSG — to protect Islamabad’s core interests.

• Moreover, while India decided to name and shame and diplomatically isolate Pakistan
on terrorism, neither the Goa declaration nor any other country mentioned cross-
border terrorism. Rather, the Chinese President called for “political solutions” to
“regional hotspots” in an oblique reference to the Kashmir issue and the need for
dialogue between India and Pakistan.

• However, such divergences did not prevent India from using the Goa meeting to relate
to China bilaterally. For instance, the two leaders decided to hold a dialogue on India’s
bid for membership to the NSG, even though there wasn’t any major shift in China’s
opposition yet.

-Views of C. Raja Mohan:

President Xi Jinping’s reluctance at the BRICS summit in Goa to yield either on India’s
membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or its concerns about Pakistan’s support for cross-
border terrorism reflects the huge power imbalance that now defines Beijing’s engagement
with Delhi. On its part, India must move away from the idea of parity with China to finding
ways to cope with the consequences of the growing gap in material capabilities.

Considering Xi Jinping’s stopover at Dhaka on his way to the BRICS summit offering
investments more than $25 million, as compared to Modi’s $2 billion, China’s footprint in the
Subcontinent grows at India’s expense.
The problem is rooted in the fact that ideology has long dominated Delhi’s China policy.
Beijing, in contrast, has never stopped seeing India through the prism of power politics. 

CHINA’S ATTEMPTS FOR AN FTA

China was attempting to bring to the negotiating table a proposal for a Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) between the five major emerging economies. It was aimed at boosting trade ties in the
grouping through binding commitments on eliminating tariffs.

However, BRICS members barring China were not keen on such a pact. Their apprehensions
about the plan include the fear that it could lead to a surge in imports of Chinese goods into
their territory — in turn, hurting local manufacturing. South Africa even said that an
immediate push for a BRICS FTA may even polarize nations.

There was also no interest to start negotiations on a separate ‘BRICS Investment (protection &
promotion) Treaty.