China's special place in Modis' heart is now a thorn in his side

Narendra Modi once admired China. As India's business-friendly head of state, he visited there several times to attract investment and see how his country could learn from the economic transformation of its neighbors. China, he said, has a special place in my heart. Chinese officials hailed his march to national power as that of a political star.

But soon after Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, China made clear that relations would not be so easy. As he celebrated his 63rd birthday by welcoming the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping even sat with him on a swing in a riverside park. Chinese troops were intruding into Indian territory in the Himalayas, triggering a standoff that lasted weeks.

A decade later, ties between the world's two most populous nations are almost completely severed. Continued border incursions escalated into a fierce clash in 2020 that threatened to lead to all-out war. Mr. Modi, a strongman who controls all the levers of power in India and who has expanded relations with many other countries, seems unusually helpless in the face of the break with China.

As Mr. Modi seeks a third term in elections that begin Friday, tensions weigh heavily on his campaign's overarching narrative: that he wants to make India a major world power and, by extension, restore pride national. Away from the 3,100-mile border, along every lane where India seeks to expand, China emerges as a fierce competitor.

In India's backyard in South Asia, China has used its vast resources, the fruits of economic reforms introduced decades before India, to challenge Indian pre-eminence, wooing its partners through infrastructure agreements and gaining access to strategic ports.

More broadly, China and India are competing to take the lead among developing countries in the so-called Global South. When India hosted the Group of 20 summit last year, using it to show support for poorer countries, Mr. Xi skipped the event. China has also been a major obstacle to India's campaign to secure a coveted permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Today you are encountering an India that you may have never seen before, in many ways, said Nirupama Menon Rao, former Indian ambassador to China and the United States. I think the Chinese are more and more aware of this, and they would still like to drag us down, create barriers.

India's distance from China has allowed Western countries to expand military and economic ties with New Delhi, a painful development for Beijing.

India signed a series of agreements with the United States last year to strengthen military cooperation. India has also moved closer to the other two Quad members, Australia and Japan, as the group works to counter China's power projection.

Additionally, India sees an opportunity as the United States and Europe look for alternatives to China to manufacture their products. One of the first successes was the sharp increase in iPhone production in India.

But even with these overtures, China continues to expose Indian insecurities. China's economy is about five times larger than India's, and China remains India's second largest trading partner (after the United States), exporting to India about six times more than it does. it doesn't matter. China spends more than three times what India spends on its military, giving its forces a significant advantage on land, sea and in the air.

The Indian military, which has long struggled to modernize, is now forced to prepare for conflict on two fronts, with China to India's east and its rival Pakistan to its west.

Tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops remain on war footing in the Himalayas, four years after deadly skirmishes broke out in the disputed eastern Ladakh region, where both countries have increased their military presence. Nearly two dozen rounds of negotiations have failed to bring about disengagement.

Although the political opposition has tried to portray Mr. Modi as weak in the face of Chinese encroachment, the border incursions are unlikely to harm him politically, given the lack of coverage from the largely Indian media. friendly.

Nonetheless, Mr. Modi has had to prioritize billions of dollars for border infrastructure and military modernization, while India still struggles to meet the basic needs of its 1.4 billion people. His government is drawing up plans to repopulate hundreds of border villages as a second line of defense against the constant threat of Chinese encroachment.

S. Jaishankar, Mr. Modis' foreign minister, admitted recently that there was no easy answer to the dilemma posed by India's aggressive neighbor. They change, we change, Mr. Jaishankar said. How to find a balance?

In a book published in 2020, as he became Mr. Modi's trusted architect on foreign policy, Mr. Jaishankar wrote that tensions between the United States and China were the global backdrop to choice of India in a world of all against all. India's ambitions as a major power, he wrote, would require a juggling act: engaging America, managing China, cultivating Europe, reassuring Russia.

India's rise thanks to its large and growing economy has enabled it to maintain its position by working with all the partners it can benefit from in a polarized and uncertain world.

Even as India has expanded its defense ties with the United States and doubled its bilateral trade over the past decade to about $130 billion in goods alone, it has resisted U.S. pressure to reconsider its strong relations with Russia. India has also deepened its ties with Europe and the Middle East; trade with the United Arab Emirates alone reached $85 billion.

While India fears becoming a pawn in the West's fight against Beijing and has not forgotten its frosty history with the United States, China has become an unavoidable target after being a secondary threat to a large part of modern Indian history.

India's founding, socialist prime minister was accommodating toward communist China, but his good nature was shattered by a month-long war in 1962 that left thousands dead. Relations began to normalize in the 1980s, even as incursions continued, and open communication channels kept tensions low and trade increased.

It was a different China, said Ms. Rao, the former diplomat.

The situation changed in the years before Mr. Modi took office, she said. As its economy soared, China began to flex its muscles, investing heavily in its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which India saw as a threat to its security and spheres of influence, and acting more aggressively on its borders and in the Indian Ocean.

Yet Mr Modi, blacklisted by the United States when he was head of state because of his role in bloody religious riots, continued to reach out to Beijing. As prime minister, he did not let the embarrassment of China's incursion in 2014 spoil his red carpet welcome to Mr. Xi. His subtle message, a warning that a little toothache can paralyze the whole body, carried hope that Mr. Xi would return.

This hope ended with the deadly 2020 clashes in eastern Ladakh. It is now clear that New Delhi is resigned to the long-term threat from China, a shift evident in Mr Modi's drive to build roads and tunnels in border areas to support a significant troop presence.

Over the past five years, more than 2,200 miles of roads have been built along the border. In the Kashmir region, more than 2,000 workers have been busy digging a high-altitude tunnel for three years that will improve connectivity with Ladakh.

When the tunnel project, which will cost more than $850 million, is completed, it will guarantee year-round traffic and reduce travel time by several hours.

For four months, supplies to the Indian army were disrupted due to the road closure, said Harpal Singh, the project leader. Once this tunnel is completed, this will not happen again.

Mr Modis' government is also trying to revive hundreds of villages along the border to strengthen their defenses.

Through a program called Vibrant Villages, the government is working to develop infrastructure, expand services and support tourism in hopes of reversing the economic migration that has created ghost villages.

What India could have done in the last 20 years, it must do now in two years, said Sonam Murup, a retired Indian Army officer from Ladakh, referring to infrastructure development in its region.

Our situation is much better now, he said. But when you look at the Chinese side, you can see villages full of lights.

Joy Dong contributed reporting from Hong Kong.