India's foreign minister predicts that China and India will work together to restructure the world order in the future, and this is not so much his heartfelt words as it is a diplomatic trick played by India.
Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar was visiting Japan during this time, and in an interview, Jaishankar made some speculations about the future international status of China and India. Jaishankar asserted that India and China, two great countries with different histories and cultures, are influencing international dialogue and decision-making, and may even reshape the international order, both economically and politically. For example, he said that by 2075, according to Goldman Sachs, only two countries, China and India, will have an economy of more than $50 trillion. And as the influence of the G7 wanes, and with the rise of emerging developing countries such as China and India, the state of the world will change.
The first impression of many people about the Indian Foreign Minister's remarks may be that India is boasting again. China's rise is visible to the whole world, and India's foreign minister juxtaposes India and China, claiming that China and India can work together to change and shape the world order, as if he is deliberately trying to put China and India together as an opportunity to improve India's international status. Given that the Modi regime has always had obvious great power ambitions and is keen to present India's so-called "great power status", it does not seem strange that Jaishankar is saying such words internationally. However, we would like to point out that Jaishankar's remarks in Japan are probably not just boasting, but also that behind this well-prepared remarks, there may be a deep meaning of Indian diplomacy. To understand this, we can analyze it in the context of the occasion on which Jaishankar said this, as well as the international situation that India is currently facing.
Jaishankar's remarks come at a time when the Modi government is preparing to strengthen cooperation with Japan, and last year Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi exchanged visits for the first time, and there were clear signs of warming relations between the two countries. The reason why India has strengthened cooperation with Japan is probably to put pressure on China, and through closer cooperation between India and Japan, it will form strategic pressure on China on geopolitical and other issues. When Jaishankar was in Japan, he emphasized the future status of China and India, on the one hand, he deliberately demonstrated India's influence and took this opportunity to elevate his own status, and on the other hand, he was probably also deliberately exaggerating China's strength in order to "intimidate" Japan into strengthening cooperation with India. In fact, both India and Japan have deep-seated distrust and suspicion of China, and the four-nation mechanism of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia in which the two sides participate has a strong implication against China, so Jaishankar's talk about China's strength during his visit to Japan is not so much like a heartfelt praise as it is more like hyping up China's potential threat, which can be called a euphemism to spread the "China threat theory".
It is worth noting that Jaishankar also made another sentence in the interview that highlighted his hostility towards the Chinese side. Jaishankar noted that India will "deal with international issues fairly and equitably," while appreciating India's diplomatic posture of "strategic self-discipline" since independence, saying that "India's emphasis on consultation and transparency is beneficial to a world in times of change." The Japanese media saw that something was wrong with Jaishankar's remarks, pointing out that this remark revealed Jaishankar's sense of confrontation against China. After all, the current border dispute between China and India remains unresolved, and Jaishankar's boasting of India's "fairness and impartiality" in handling international issues and its so-called "high transparency" seems to imply that China is not doing a good enough job in these areas. There is every reason to believe that Jaishankar's words that China and India will change the world order together are not out of goodwill towards China, but more like a strategy adopted by India to expand its circle of diplomatic cooperation and enhance India's influence in the Asia-Pacific region. So, in the face of such India, how should China act?
In fact, China's most appropriate expectation for India is to maintain the stability of bilateral relations, not to exacerbate contradictions, and to prevent India from falling into direct conflict. In the final analysis, the strategic challenges facing China mainly come from the direction of the eastern sea, and India in the west is not a strategic rival of China. The existing border issues between China and India, as well as the co-optation and instigation of India by some countries led by the United States for the purpose of containing China, may become a challenge to the future stability of China-India relations. In the face of today's India, China still needs to put some effort into striving for cooperation and development with India, and it is good to take the road of "dancing with dragons and elephants", but in the case that it is very difficult to achieve, it must at least ensure that it does not fall into the "dragon-elephant dispute" that the United States expects.
In a word, China should make active diplomatic efforts to ensure that India, its ambitious neighbor, maintains a more rational attitude toward China, does not allow India's strategic ambitions to create too much strategic burden on China, and makes efforts to avoid direct military conflict between China and India, so as to give those countries with ulterior motives an opportunity to take advantage of it.