The Hindu | India-China consumption comparison

In 2023, India surpassed China to become the world’s most populous country. The development came against the backdrop of a declining birth rate (6.4 births per 1,000 people) and total fertility rate (~1%) in China. China also recorded a negative population growth rate for the first time in six decades. This means a rising dependency ratio, which is projected to increase over time. In contrast, India’s population, despite reaching replacement levels (total fertility rate of 2.1), is expected to grow and peak around 2060. Read the article here.

ThePrint | What are China’s intentions in building Shaksgam Valley road? Not security, look to politics

China’s road-building capability and intentions in the Himalayas were highlighted recently through a post on X by researcher Nature Desai. Utilising satellite imagery, he argued that China has built a road across the Aghil Pass, located at a height of 4,805 m, and entered the lower Shaksgam Valley. The roadhead is now less than 30 miles from the Siachen Glacier. This triggered speculation in the Indian media about China’s intentions and capabilities regarding the potential collusive threat posed by China and Pakistan to India’s defences in the Siachen Glacier region. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Thinking through a Taiwan conflict – How can countries like India respond?

In the past few years, the China-Taiwan cross-Straits relationship has witnessed rising tensions. There now exist fundamental faultlines in the cross-Straits relationship, which may create an escalatory ladder leading to an eventual conflict scenario. Such a scenario shall endanger the interests of not just parties directly involved, such as the US, China and Taiwan, but also other countries around the world. In this regard, what are the politico-legal options available to concerned States at multilateral forums like the United Nations to voice their interests in the event of a conflict? A three-part solution may provide some answers. Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | India, China war of positions in Maldives

The Maldivian presidential election last month culminated in a victory for Mohamed Muizzu and a loss for incumbent president Ibrahim Solih. The election was keenly watched in New Delhi and Beijing. How India and China see each other in strategic spaces such as the Maldives determines the nature of their competition in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | When India and China speak for Global South

The Global South is a vague term – it is supposed to capture a diverse group of 130-odd countries, encapsulating two-thirds of the world’s population, and covers Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and the Caribbean. But it seems to possess extraordinary political and diplomatic purchases for both India and China. Both are increasingly positioning themselves as leaders of the Global South. What utility such leadership implies for each, however, reveals differences. Delhi appears to view the Global South through the lens of shared interests and hopes to function as a bridge between the Global North and Global South. Meanwhile, Beijing’s outreach to the Global South is driven by an agenda to tilt the scales in its favour in terms of its strategic competition with the United States (US).

ThePrint | At LAC, China is not settling ‘disputed’ borders. It’s containing India

Interconnectedness of events and diplomatic exchanges often provide clues to the state of power play that shapes relations between countries. Two recent events in the landscape of India-China relations seem to indicate that the outlook may not be encouraging. The first was the 19th round of military commander-level talks held on 13 and 14 August. Second — the 15th BRICS meeting at Johannesburg on 22 and 23 August. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Three factors that prevent India and China from getting close

Both India and China lie at the heart of the geopolitical churn in the Indo-Pacific, with their bilateral relationship holding significant implications for the future of the world order. While India is pursuing a policy of multi-alignment, it increasingly seems to be caught between two emerging power centres. On one side is a rising China, which is seeking to actively reshape the international order to facilitate its rise to the centre-stage of world affairs; on the other is the US, which is working to boost domestic strength, revitalise old alliances and fashion new partnerships in order to sustain its preeminence. Read the full article here.

China lowered the gun for Modi-Xi Uzbekistan meet. India can’t take its eyes off the barrel yet

Breaking the military deadlock at Gogra-Hot Springs in Ladakh has been touted as paving the way for the Narendra Modi-Xi Jinping meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit scheduled in Uzbekistan on 15-16 September. The military commanders had probably arrived at a consensus when they met for the 16th round of negotiations on 17 July. But political approval by both sides seems to have taken nearly two months. The delay conceals more than it reveals about the contemporary dynamics of China-India relations and the role of the military confrontation on India’s northern border in the context of power shifts leading to geopolitical competition at the global level.

India must look China in the eye at Vostok 2022. Retain presence, but signal distance

India’s participation in multinational military exercises often reflects the imperative for it to walk a tightrope across the global geopolitical divide. However, the deepening and expanding friction points of the global divide are posing greater challenges for India’s ability to maintain a strategic posture that seeks context and issue-based cooperation. For more than two decades, India has carried out bilateral and multilateral military exercises with the US, China, Russia and a long list of nations mainly from Europe and Asia. It is no surprise that as the three-week-long, 13th Indo-US Joint Special Forces Exercise Vajra Prahar 2022 is underway in Himachal Pradesh, there are unconfirmed reports of India’s participation in the Russian-hosted Vostok 2022 slated from 30 August to 5 September.

As China Threat Looms Over Taiwan, This Is How India Can Keep Global Chip Industry Afloat

As the Russia-Ukraine crisis continues, questions have been raised about how this might affect China’s decision-making process on Taiwan. The island nation remains under threat from potential Chinese aggression and its lucrative semiconductor industry hangs in the balance. India, as a growing semiconductor power, must look at Taiwan closely on technology cooperation in the domain and should not shy away from building a semiconductor alliance with the country. It is imperative that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry be protected in case of external aggression by building redundancy and resiliency through partnerships with key states like India.

India’s Solar And Renewable Energy Push Signals Challenge To Chinese Dominance

As finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman read out her Budget speech in Parliament on 1 February, the stock prices of domestic solar manufacturers such as Adani Solar, Tata Power and Suzlon rose sharply in response to government’s big push to green energy. With India setting specific goals for the reduction of carbon emissions as seen from the signalling at the COP-26 summit, the competition for dominating the global renewable energy markets is something to watch out for.

Heed Napoleon’s words as China fancies its odds of taking Taiwan

The ongoing confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops along the Himalayan frontiers is serious, but pales in comparison with the situation across the Taiwan Strait. Over the weekend of 18-19 September, China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and Navy (PLAN) flew 37 aircraft—including fighters and bombers—across the centre line that has served as the informal boundary between the mainland and Taiwan. One of the intruding pilots declared to Taiwanese defenders on the radio that “there is no median line in the Taiwan Strait." Beijing’s intrusions coincided with and were certainly a reaction to a US state department official’s visit to Taipei. As an intimidatory tactic, China’s move is highly risky. One miscalculation by a pilot or an air defence operator could spark a conflict that could well draw in the United States and its allies into a bigger war.Read more

On Trump's Offer to Mediate Between India and China

The Print’s daily roundtable TalkPoint posed a question connected to the US President Donald Trump's offer to mediate between India and China over the “raging border dispute": Does Trump help or harm India’s interests when he offers to mediate with China, Pakistan?My response:

US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate is a needless distraction in the grand scheme of things.Assessing what the US foreign policy would be like based on Trump’s offer to mediate on Twitter is a risky exercise. Often, there is a considerable gap between the two, like in the case of Afghanistan.Officially, the White House released a report on 20 May that said in no uncertain terms that Beijing “flouts its commitments to its neighbours by engaging in provocative and coercive military and paramilitary activities in the Yellow Sea, the East and South China Seas, the Taiwan Strait, and Sino-Indian border areas.” We can only guess whether Trump’s latest offer to mediate follows as a result of this understanding.Nevertheless, India’s position on such offers has been consistent — it intends to solve such disputes bilaterally and not through third party mediation. China is not likely to accept any such offers of mediation either. Hence, it would help the Indian and American interests both, a lot more if the US and India work together to build capacity to resist Beijing’s coercive and arrogant approach to border disputes.The case with Pakistan is also similar. The border dispute there is just one issue in a consistently strained India-Pakistan relationship. In fact, the US support to the Pakistani military-jihadi complex over the years has made this problem even more difficult. Here again, it would help the Indian and the US interests a lot more if the US adopts an overall strategic stance that sees Pakistan as a part of the problem.

You can read the full conversation on ThePrint. here. 

India’s road to RCEP laden with China-related obstacles

Ten years ago, the question was whether India and China should sign a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). Today, it is whether India should join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). There are two different but interconnected issues: the dominance of Chinese manufacturers in the export of goods; and the impenetrability of the Chinese market to Indian and other foreign companies. On the other hand, joining the RCEP might compel New Delhi to launch the second-generation economic reforms.Read more