The Other Summit

[sayak83]

Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping to meet in Friday's other big summit - CNN

"As the leaders of the two largest developing countries, they feel that the two countries need to communicate in great depth on some long-term, comprehensive and strategic issues embedded in bilateral relations and international affairs," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters Tuesday.

"If you're not friendly with China, the US -- especially under Trump -- will finish you off and give you a very bad bargain," said Madhav Das Nalapat, director of the geopolitics department at Manipal University in India. "If you're not friendly with the US, China will roll over you."
"So if you want a healthy relationship with China or the US, you need healthy relations with both," he added. "We need the US on security and China for commerce and trade."

"This is a recognition of both leaders that India and China are going to have to work together in order to make the 21st Century the Asian century," said Nalapat, the Indian professor. "The Asian century, frankly, is at the core of this summit."
"They are going to work hard on creating a very strong relationship, on creating oxygen that can pour down and help solve problems at the lower level," he added.


How do you think this other summit go? With both Korea and Indo-China meets, is it possible that this Friday will be considered one of the most historically significant dates in Asian and world history?

 

[Stevicus]

An interesting development. It doesn't appear that they have any specific agenda or plan, as the article said this was an informal meeting. It seems like they're the two giants on the Asian continent who are wary of each other, but also don't appear to want to rile each other too much.

I also was not aware that China had been making encroachments in the Indian Ocean. My understanding is that India views the Indian Ocean as their ocean and have been working on projecting their burgeoning military power towards asserting that objective.

From the article:

Recent moves that have aroused strong suspicion in India range from China's taking control of a major port in Sri Lanka and signing of groundbreaking trade deals with Nepal, to its navy conducting anti-piracy operations in the western Indian Ocean.

At a press conference in March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two countries' leaders "have developed a strategic vision for the future of our relations: the Chinese 'dragon' and the Indian 'elephant' must not fight each other, but dance with each other."

Apparently, Sri Lanka asked India for money to help rebuild the port, but India declined. So then they went to China, and China now has control of a port in India's backyard. China's support of Pakistan has also been troubling to India.

Not sure what this means for the West, but considering that our foreign policy has been a grandiose example of "management by crisis," the idea of India and China being strong enough and stable enough to form a backbone of stability in some of the most troubled areas of the world along the Indian Ocean rim, then the US would have less of an excuse to get involved in the region.

On the other hand, India and Russia have generally had good relations. Moreover, if India, Russia, and China all get together to form a power bloc against the West, it could mean a fundamental shift in the world's balance of power.