In India, an "infrastructure war" is quietly underway for the country's future and pride. Modi is eyeing the construction of high-speed rail, vowing to open a new chapter for India, but can they swim against the current, abandon the notoriety of the "tofu scum project", and truly rival the glory of China's high-speed rail construction? In this regard, the international community has almost the same view, which is impossible.
In recent years, high-speed rail, as an important indicator of national development, has become India's number one project. Despite the safety concerns of India's high-speed rail and the repeated postponement of many projects, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi still has not given up the construction of high-speed rail, announcing the awakening of India's infrastructure capacity. So, can high-speed rail construction lead India to the path of modernisation they aspire to?
In November last year, India's Minister of Railways proudly announced**, showing off to the world the completion of five viaducts. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed railway is portrayed as India's version of a mega-project. The project began in 2017 and was jointly launched by Modi and then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo. The Indian side believes that the project will enable Japan's advanced high-speed rail technology to eventually be mastered by India.
However, the project, which was originally scheduled to be completed in 2023, has been postponed due to various challenges. Land acquisition, budgetary issues, and technical and construction challenges have made it difficult for Modi to realize India's dream of high-speed rail. Even so, India recently said it had acquired all the land it needed, and seemed to rekindle the spark of hope for the project, promising to put the first phase of the project's high-speed rail construction into operation by 2026.
India's high-speed rail ambitions are a shot in the arm to boost the country's confidence. Through this landmark project, Modi is trying to prove to the international community that India's infrastructure is expected to win applause on the global stage and even add luster to the "Made in India" brand.
Behind this promise is Modi's ambitious slogan, which was launched from a high-speed rail network connecting four major cities in 2015 to a value of 13 by the end of 2019Rs 68 trillion for the National Infrastructure Pipeline project, and then Rs 100 trillion in 2021 to support various infrastructure projects.
However, it remains questionable whether all these efforts will actually change the international community's perception of "India's infrastructure". India's frequent train accidents and questionable bridge quality continue to "put a question mark" on India's infrastructure. The question arises, does it mean that India's high-speed rail project is just a gold-plated shell, or can it truly replicate the miracle of China's high-speed rail construction?
There is no doubt about itWhen people think of high-speed rail construction on a global scale, they immediately think of China's success story. The breadth of China's high-speed railway, the speed of construction and the maturity of technology have all set a benchmark for the international community. India's decision to make a breakthrough in this area is undoubtedly extremely challenging. However, it is not easy to surpass in this area. India will not only need to overcome its current infrastructure shortcomings, but it will also need to demonstrate real progress in terms of security and efficiency.
In fact, India's efforts in the field of high-speed rail are nothing more than to emphasize that "China can do it, I can do it too", but now, India not only cannot realize this slogan, but there are more and more examples of being slapped in the face.
In recent years, as China has accelerated the pace of promoting the internationalization of the renminbi, a series of remarkable achievements have emerged one after another. In particular, China and Russia have adopted local currency settlements in bilateral **, which has gotten rid of the shackles of the US dollar to a certain extent. Looking at this situation, India seems to have been inspired to try to put its own currency, the rupee, into the waves of the international market.
However, India's attempt did not go as planned. Russia has a negative attitude towards India's use of the rupee for oil** and would rather choose to sail tankers to China than to charge rupees.
Now, India's "big bet" on the Russian energy market has become the focus of many parties, and in the face of the collective embargo of Russian energy by EU countries, Russia has to quickly change its strategy to attract new buyers with deep discounts.
India, on the other hand, seems to have seized this rare opportunity with a sharp increase in Russian oil and gas imports from the beginning of 2022, surpassing China by mid-2023 to become Russia's largest customer of energy commodities. But in an instant, India's Russian oil imports plummeted to an unprecedented low in December of the same year.
The reason behind this is simple: Russia has long made it clear that it no longer accepts US dollars to pay for Russian energy goods, and the rupee is not on its radar. India had tried to settle in UAE currency, but Russian Far East exporters had not been able to open accounts in the UAE, making the whole payment process a failure.
As a result,The final destination of the Russian tankers that were originally bound for India was undoubtedly China, with five of them heading for the Strait of Malacca and one staying near Sri Lanka.
The settlement between India and Russia may be solved by using the renminbi, after all, the Russian side is not opposed to such an approach. But India's attitude toward China has led to its refusal to adopt it, and India's ambitions have been dashed by the inability to replace the renminbi. Under the current structure, the rupee has almost no purchasing power in the hands of the Russian side, after all, because India cannot provide the equivalent goods or services that the Russian side needs.
India's gamble is tantamount to a missed opportunity. Russia's cold and hard-nosed attitude shows a cruel truth: in the international world, there are no victorious generals, only appropriate strategies and real complementarity.
India may need to re-examine its foreign and economic policies and seek more pragmatic and broad-based international partnerships, rather than simply imitating the models of other countries. Looking ahead, if India continues to adhere to its own policy settings, its role in the international arena will face greater challenges and uncertainties.
In general, it is better for India to stop shouting the slogan "China can do it, I can do it" until its own strength has been thoroughly improved, otherwise it will only make the international community see India's more and more embarrassment.