2024.07.01
Grandview Institution 2024.07.01 10:50 Beijing
On June 27, Grandview Institution hosted the "Dialogue Series on China-India Relations" to discuss "Modi's Third-Term Foreign Policy and Prospects for China-India Relations". Mr. Wang Shaodong, former Chief Representative of India Investment Promotion and Trade Development Center under the Ministry of Commerce of China; Ms. Zhang Wenjuan, Professor and Vice Dean of Jindal Global Law School, India; Mr. He An, Secretary General of GVI and Director of its Center for South Asian Studies, and some young scholars participated in the dialogue.
Mr. Wang Shaodong delivered a keynote speech on "Modi's Third-Term Foreign Policy and Prospects for China-India Relations". Having lived and worked in India for nearly 2 decades, he has been studying the country closely for quite a long time. He is now a researcher at Guangdong Indo-Pacific Institute for Peace and Development, specializing in India's internal affairs and diplomacy, Sino-India relations, and India's business environment, with many research articles and reports published.
Mr. Wang said Modi's third-term foreign policy agenda includes "global leading power diplomacy, counter-terrorism diplomacy, neighbor-first strategy, economic diplomacy and defense of maritime rights and security, and Hindu cultural diplomacy." Of these, "global leading power diplomacy" encompasses making “leading the Global South” a new focus of India's diplomacy, actively pushing for a number of reforms in the UN and working into a permanent member of the UN Security Council, becoming a global rapid-response country to enhance India's influence and status, and expanding the network of India's global diplomatic institutions.
In terms of relations with China, India will further regard the PRC as its major contender. It will be more inclined to cooperate with the U.S. to curb China. Many of its initiatives in economic diplomacy will bring the two countries into competition in many aspects. Vigorously strengthening its manufacturing industry, India will push forward its drive to become "an alternative to China". Its doubled efforts to promote Hindu cultural diplomacy will also clash with the ideology of Chinese traditional culture and Chinese-style modernization.
Prof. Zhang Wenjuan, the founding director of the Center for Indo-China Studies at Jindal Global University, and the first Chinese teacher to be awarded a full-time chair for non-language teaching in an Indian university, noted that India is a multifaceted country full of contradictions. In this case, we should enhance our understanding of India, and never get satisfied with some one-sided conclusions or emotional judgments. The complexity of India's national and social conditions constantly teaches us a lesson that we must be appreciative of all kinds of "differences" and sensitive to "what we don't know". The development models of China and India have mutual reference value, and there is much to learn from each other.