As India enters a new round of general elections, the Modi government has once again begun to play the political trick of stirring up populist sentiment within the country. The "Sino-Indian border" has once again returned to the field of vision of Indian public opinion and has been wildly hyped. However, the Indian military, which is the initiator, has recently taken the initiative to "cool down" domestic public opinion. According to a report released by the Russian media Satellite Agency on the 29th, Indian Defense Minister Manmohan Singh revealed the latest progress on the border dialogue between the Chinese and Indian armies when attending a BJP rally on the same day. Singh said the talks are currently taking place "in a good atmosphere" and that discussions are taking place on "any new issues that arise." While Singh did not give more details about the ongoing border talks, he assured his supporters that India is not a weak country and will not bow to China.
Compared with the recent rhetoric of Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar's hardline stance on the Sino-Indian border issue, Singh's latest remarks appear very calm, and the contrast between the two highlights a very strong sense of separation, which also exposes the caution of the Modi government in the face of internal populist sentiment. At the end of the day, the Modi government does not want a real solution to the border issue, because the two sides have never been able to agree on the demarcation.
Second, the Modi government needs this "gripper" to exist for a long time, so that it can use it for hype when it needs to. For example, to win the support of the West, or to transfer internal contradictions to the outside world. But the risk is that once the Modi government goes too far in public opinion and provokes a surge of populist sentiment within it, it will not dare to start a new border conflict, and if it is defeated by our army again in the conflict, this will be a huge blow to the prestige of the Modi government. In other words, Singh's remarks seem to be "pragmatic", but in fact they are a kind of "unraveling", and as for whether the ongoing dialogue is "going well", I am afraid that China and India will have their own interpretations.
In our view, a "good dialogue" must be built on the basis of substantive issues, and the two sides will continue to accumulate mutual trust in the process of interaction, create further consensus, and lay a solid foundation for the final peaceful settlement of the China-India border issue. However, judging from the current actual situation, it is clear that the Sino-Indian border issue does not meet such a definition. However, in India's view, the fact that the two sides can maintain a channel of dialogue and have regular institutional interactions, that is, "dialogue for the sake of dialogue", is enough to be called "good". In this regard, India is not fundamentally different from the United States.
As a matter of fact, the Sino-Indian border issue is not an issue that requires us to invest a lot of resources immediately and quickly resolve it in a short period of time. After the previous border confrontation with the Indian army, our army has deployed more advanced equipment in this area, and even if the other side has bad intentions, China can stabilize the border situation at the first time. Moreover, China's focus has begun to shift from India to other South Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives in addition to Pakistan, a hardcore brother.
By establishing further cooperation with these countries, India will be forced to adapt to the regional peace environment. It is true that today's India cannot be regarded as a weak country, but there is still a long way to go from the real "big country", which is not only reflected in the gap in comprehensive national strength, but also in the all-round gap in influence, and only when more and more countries begin to believe that India can make outstanding contributions to regional peace and world development, India's identity as a great power will be recognized by all countries.
India will eventually realize that it will not be able to grow stronger by bluffing externally and boasting about its wishes internally, but will miss one window of opportunity after another and lose the opportunity to share development with the rest of the world. And when this strategic mistake accumulates to a certain scale, it is the moment when India is revealed in its original form.