Originally published as ‘Vikram Misri’s Beijing visit underlines India’s limited options’, Deccan Herald, 4 February 2025. At the end of January, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited China in the latest step in an unfolding thaw in the bilateral relationship. It should be clear, however, from the statements put out by each side on the meeting …
Category Archives: War and Conflict
Doval-Wang SR Talks: Back to the Grind
Originally published as, ‘Two steps forward, one step back’, The Indian Express, 21 December 2024. p.11. Published online as ‘On India-China ties, Delhi takes one step forward, two steps back’. While Indian statements on the bilateral relationship with China are exercises in brevity, Chinese statements are more expansive by comparison. Taken together, however, they provide …
New India-China Patrolling Agreement: More Questions from Kazan
Originally published as, ‘Path to normalisation of India-China ties not easy’, Deccan Herald, 26 October 2024. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held “their first proper bilateral meeting at delegation level in nearly five years” on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia.[1] Coming in the wake of an announcement earlier …
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Takeaways from Xi’s Congress
Originally published at The Indian Express, 24 October 2022. p.14. Published online as ‘Xi Jinping’s Congress: What are the implications for China, the world, and India?’ What are the main takeaways from the CPC Congress? The CPC’s 20th Congress underlined General Secretary Xi Jinping’s role not just as the core of the Central Committee but also …
എല്ലാം നയിക്കുന്ന പാർട്ടി
Co-authored with Anand Parappadi Krishnan and originally published as ‘എല്ലാം നയിക്കുന്ന പാർട്ടി; ചൈനീസ് പാർട്ടി കോൺഗ്രസിന് കൊടിയേറുമ്പോൾ’, 24 News, 15 October 2022. ചൈനീസ് കമ്മ്യുണിസ്റ്റ് പാർട്ടിയുടെ (സി.സി.പി) ഇരുപതാം ദേശീയ കോൺഗ്രസ് ഒക്ടോബർ 16-ന് ആരംഭിക്കും. ചൈനയുടെ സാമ്പത്തിക-രാഷ്ട്രീയ കരുത്ത് വർധിച്ചതോടെ, ഓരോ അഞ്ച് വർഷത്തെ ഇടവേളയിലും നടക്കുന്ന ഈ സമ്മേളനത്തിന്റെ പ്രാധാന്യവും ഉയർന്നിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഈ സമ്മേളനങ്ങളും അതിൽ ഓരോന്നിലും ജനറൽ സെക്രട്ടറിമാർ അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന രാഷ്ട്രീയ റിപ്പോർട്ടും പുറം ലോകത്തിന് …
A Significant Non-Meeting: Modi and Xi at Samarkand
Originally published as ‘Samarkand SCO: Significance of the Modi-Xi non-meeting’, Moneycontrol, 19 September 2022. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not meet one-on-one with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan on the sidelines of the 22nd meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Council of Heads of State. At least there is no publicly shared evidence of the meeting …
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China-Taiwan crisis: Implications and options for Japan
Co-authored with Chisako T. Masuo and originally published at India Today, 9 August 2022. It would be easy to portray the tensions generated by the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan as something largely involving the US and China; sometimes, even the Taiwanese are not considered as part of the …
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Lessons for India from Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit
Originally published at Moneycontrol, 4 August 2022. How is United States’ House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan relevant to Indian citizens? One, it should teach Indians a thing or two about the value of separation of powers and the options it creates for conducting smart foreign policy. At a joint press conference …
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In the new cold war China is not Russia
China’s decades-long pursuit of asymmetric military capabilities garners a great deal of attention but the victory of the US at the end of the Cold War taught it much else
Thinking about China in India 