The Elephant and dragon dance
The Doklam standoff proved to us that China was trying to flex its muscles along its border overstepping at times. India and Bhutan immediately made it clear that China’s misadventure is not acceptable.After a couple of rounds of Bilateral talks, China and India ended the face off mutually.
But this time, the significance of the standoff this time around has a different meaning than from Doklam.
China is facing a huge international accusation for being the mother of deadly Corona Virus, which has taken more than 4 lakh lives as of writing this article.
The accusations are also about China’s economic gain out of this pandemic.The nature of the accusation is a compelling advocacy as it is a well known fact that China has extended its root in the supply chain of all major industries — Electronics to Pharma.
While the accusation is not proven yet, the US has immediately reacted with Sanctions on most of the chinese business in US. It also feels that China may take advantage of the economic meltdown to acquire bigger companies at cheaper prices and so has brought all Chinese Investments under scanner.
Following the cue, India immediately reacted with an Ordinance, which requires approval from the government before any foreign (especially countries having land border with India) companies can invest in Indian companies during this tough time of epidemic.Meanwhile the remaining companies are flocking out of China due to lack of transparency, to other neighboring countries.
With no place to invest and existing investments being scrutinized and lost, It is clear that China is getting into an unfavorable economic climate.
How to regain some of the markets which China has already invested in ?
While China has been aware for more than 2 and half years about the infrastructure development along its borders on the other side(Indian side), the timing right now seems apt for China to prove its military strength and terrorize India with impending economic doom if an escalation occurs.
Nepal, an all weather friend of India, has suddenly turned its back on India. While it is clear that Nepal is acting on behalf of China, as the latter contributes 42% of the entire FDI of Nepal. China has consistently invested in BRI(Belt and Road Initiative) to make sure that strategic accessibility is always there.
Adding up all these pressure, India might open the gates of trade once again for China to improve bilateral ties.
On the other hand if India does not, China still can try to acquire sovereignty over the strategically important point under conflict. And improve strategic accessibility for better trade.
China has always tried to downplay India, fearing its equally bigger influence and competition on neighboring economies. And it has proved it time and again by irrelevant yet conflicting support to Masood Azhar and investing in Pakistan just to counter the balance of Indian influence and competition.
As mentioned earlier China is clearly in a unfavorable economic and political climate. While the dragon is not definitely happy about the grace of the elephant during this time, it remains to be seen whether it would be happy with the anger of it ?