Four years after the border conflict, a former senior official of the Indian army jumped out to ask for credit, vainly claiming that the bloody conflict between China and India was "not a bad thing"? Can it be effective for Xiaomi to persuade the Indian government to "show mercy" when it encounters frequent "extortion"? If Sri Lanka does not want to participate in the competition among major powers, can it awaken India's rationality if it clarifies the facts for China?
Saying wildly that "bloodshed and conflict is not a bad thing", a former senior official of the Indian army made wild remarks
In recent years, the relations between China and India have been kept at a relatively low temperature, and although no new conflicts have emerged, many rounds of dialogue and negotiations have not achieved remarkable results, and the overall border situation has shown a stalemate.
The main reason for this phenomenon is India's negative attitude towards the Sino-Indian border issue, which has always lacked real sincerity for dialogue and treated China with a hostile attitude, and even in 2024, India is still hyping up the Sino-Indian border conflict in 2020.
According to a report by India's One World News Channel on February 11, former Indian Army Chief of Staff Narawane declared in a speech at a literary festival in India that the bloody conflict on the Sino-Indian border in 2020 was "not a bad thing", because the incident finally made India realize that China is India's "number one threat" and made India more sober now.
In his speech, he also slandered the 2020 conflict as a "top-down and orchestrated territorial invasion" by China, and used it to criticize the Modi government's previous friendly attitude towards China, arguing that New Delhi's calling China "our friend of the north" was inappropriate.
In the past few years, China has released a large number of video materials to prove that the cause of the 2020 conflict was that the Indian side first crossed the border and violated China's territorial sovereignty.
Even the report of the World One News Channel did not fully adopt the statement of the former Indian army chief, but euphemistically added the sentence "The cause of the Sino-Indian border conflict in 2020 was India's attempt to build a road in the Galle River valley on the Sino-Indian border" to indicate India's role in the incident.
The statement that "bloody conflict is a good thing" is even more outrageous, China has never been India's so-called "number one enemy", but India has been actively expanding abroad, and this kind of thief shouting to catch a thief is simply shameless.
Under the guidance of this irrational thinking, India has disregarded the facts, abandoned rationality, regarded anti-China as a kind of political correctness, blamed China for all the mistakes made by India on its own initiative, and led all contradictory topics to hatred of China.
Of course, Naravane did not suddenly want to attack China, and his series of speeches had a clear political purpose.
We need to note that the timing of Naravane's hype of the Sino-Indian border conflict is very delicate, it is currently an election year in India, Modi is actively preparing to run for re-election, and it is a good time to use the populist sentiment in India to pull votes, and as a former Indian high-level, he has now abdicated, and what he says has the effect of authority, but does not need to represent India's official position, and will not cause bilateral diplomatic accidents, and his sudden hype of the Sino-Indian border conflict is likely to stimulate national sentiment in India and further unite Modi's voter base。
However, in the case of the unresolved Sino-Indian border issue, continuing to play populism at home is tantamount to playing with fire, and a little carelessness may lead to further tension in Sino-Indian border relations, and even a new trend of conflict will emerge.
Xiaomi persuades Indian government to "show mercy"
In addition to promoting hatred of China at the official level, India has not relaxed its rejection of China at the civilian level, and many Chinese companies entering India have been frequently targeted by the Indian government and society.
One of the most famous is the huge 4.8 billion yuan fine that Xiaomi suffered in India last year, when Indian regulators confiscated 55,512.7 million rupees, or about 4.8 billion yuan, from Xiaomi India for illegally transferring funds to foreign entities, when Xiaomi did not actually commit financial crimes, but only transferred funds to its Chinese parent company.
Although Xiaomi chose to tolerate and negotiate with the Indian government, it successfully got India to revoke the fine and lift the restrictions on Xiaomi, and retain the right to operate in India, but there was still a problem between Xiaomi and the Indian government.
According to a Reuters report on February 11, local time, citing a letter and a source familiar with the matter, Xiaomi directly informed the Indian government in a letter sent to the Indian government in early February that smartphone parts suppliers have been cautious about doing business in India amid India's strict scrutiny of Chinese companies.
The letter also expressed the hope that the Indian government would consider introducing manufacturing incentives and reducing import duties on certain smartphone components to boost India's manufacturing sector.
In the letter, Xiaomi India President Murarishnan also said that India needs to take confidence-building measures to encourage parts suppliers to do business in India and try to instill confidence in foreign parts suppliers.
It is reported that Xiaomi sent this letter in order to reply to the Indian Ministry of Technology to inquire about how to further develop the country's parts manufacturing industry, the content of the letter shows that Xiaomi has begun to lose confidence in the Indian market at this stage, that the Indian government has over-regulated, discriminatory against foreign manufacturers, and now many mobile phone parts manufacturers have no longer trusted the Indian government, in the future, the development of India's related manufacturing industry may have new challenges.
In this regard, the Indian government had better pay enough attention to it, because the entire industry and its huge supply chain are represented behind Xiaomi's letter, and Xiaomi is the largest mobile phone manufacturer in India at this stage, with a market share of 18% If Xiaomi completely loses confidence in India and finally chooses to withdraw from the Indian market, the entire mobile phone manufacturing industry chain behind it will leave India, and at the same time, vivo, a mobile phone company that has a similar experience with Xiaomi, is likely to leave India at the same time, and at that time, there will be a big earthquake in the Indian market.
However, India's local mobile phone companies have not yet accumulated enough technology and manufacturing capacity, and once foreign companies' investment in India's localized manufacturing industry is interrupted, the development and progress of the entire Indian mobile phone manufacturing industry will come to naught.
India must understand that physical investment in manufacturing is a two-way street. In the process, with the accumulation of India's local industrial base, India's own mobile phone manufacturers will also enjoy a better supply chain ecology, on the contrary, India's entire supply chain ecology will continue to deteriorate, resulting in the loss of the interests of its own local enterprises.
Now, time is running out for the Modi government, and the overall trend of development in India's manufacturing industry is showing signs of danger.
India's manufacturing problems can be found from China
India's current development model is very similar to that of China in the early and mid-reform periods, with a booming market that relies heavily on the influx of foreign investment, and protectionist measures against foreign investment, such as the Xiaomi fines, are interrupting the process of foreign investment entering India.
According to the official data released by India at the end of 2023, in a year, foreign investors sold off financial assets worth about 2 trillion rupees, and the withdrawal of foreign capital from India as a whole is accelerating.
Among them, companies like Xiaomi have played an exemplary role, and when foreign companies see that India treats foreign investment in this way, the tendency to enter India will be greatly reduced, and the enterprises that have already entered India will also have a sense of crisis, and the tendency to continue operating in India will also be greatly reduced.
If this trend is maintained, there will be a gap between the speed of foreign companies entering India and the speed of exiting India in the future, and India as a whole will show a state of investment loss, and the magnet effect of its economic development on the formation of external capital will be greatly reduced, or even completely disappear.
After India's attraction to foreign investment disappears, foreign investment itself will not stop looking for new markets, and there are Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam in India's vicinity, which also have the same labor advantages as India, as well as enough developing markets, once India stops advancing, it will be surpassed by these countries.
Now, if the Indian government wants to salvage the situation, it must change its old ways, regain its foreign cooperation, be more open to attracting foreign investment, and ensure the legitimate interests of foreign companies in India, starting with China.
According to the data of the General Administration of Customs of China, in 2023, the bilateral trade volume between China and India will reach 136.22 billion US dollars, a slight increase from 135.98 billion US dollars in 2022, and once again hit a record high in Sino-Indian bilateral trade.
To this end, India needs to abandon the misconception of the past, the reason why India was so reluctant to trade with China was that it believed that China had earned a large surplus in bilateral trade, but in fact, most of India's imports from China were relatively basic raw materials and semi-finished products, and India's overall income was positive after processing and exporting.
As long as India can achieve trade easing with China and allow more Chinese companies to enter the Indian market, it will send a positive signal to the world and encourage global companies to invest in India.
However, judging from the current election status of the Modi government, it may be very difficult to change the relationship between China and India in bilateral trade, and we can only be a bystander and hope that the Indian government can make the right choice.
Sri Lanka clarifies the facts for China, and India needs to change its neighboring policy
In addition to the contradictions over border and trade issues, China and India have another important focus in the near future, and that is Sri Lanka.
After Sri Lanka's debt explosion last year, China, as Sri Lanka's main creditor, agreed to and participated in Sri Lanka's debt restructuring, which made India feel the "China threat" again, constantly hyped up "China's passive handling of Sri Lanka's debt problem", and put pressure on Sri Lanka at the beginning of this year to refuse the docking of Chinese research ships.
In addition, India's domestic media continue to hype up public opinion, promoting that China is sowing discord between India and Sri Lanka, trying to expand its influence in the Indian Ocean, and infringing on India's inherent interests.
To this end, Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe publicly refuted the rumors on February 10, he was interviewed by the Indian media World One News Channel when attending the seventh Indian Ocean Conference, and said in the interview that Chinese ships have visited Sri Lanka for some years, and the Chinese ships docked in Sri Lanka before were only scientific research ships, and the Chinese ships were only allowed to dock, which did not affect regional security. Sri Lanka has been visited by both Japanese and Indian ships, and Sri Lanka is committed to promoting freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and should avoid great power competition in this regard.
In addition, he refuted the Indian media's argument that China is provoking India and Sri Lanka, bluntly saying that China has never tried to create a rift between India and Sri Lanka, but has always told Sri Lanka that it should live in peace with India.
In fact, the Chinese side has repeatedly stated that as a friendly neighbor and sincere friend, China has always provided assistance to Sri Lanka's economic and social development within its capacity, while stressing that China does not want great power competition to appear in the Indian Ocean, but the Indian side has chosen to ignore it.
If the Indian media continue to entangle and hold on to the relationship between China and Sri Lanka, then there will inevitably be more problems and differences between India and Sri Lanka in the future, and even if India puts pressure on Sri Lanka as a major power, it will not be able to avoid the gradual drift between the two countries.
In this regard, India had better recognize the reality, change its current policy on neighboring countries, and further promote good-neighborliness, friendship, and cooperation, otherwise India will be isolated after all its neighbors drift away from India.