Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reaction to this week’s LAC face-off is more than just paying homage to the martyred soldiers. In fact, his words were firmly weighed with his own assessment of current China under the embattled leadership of his once close friend — Xi Jinping.
The Chinese President is facing an internal crisis, threatening his own leadership amidst the murmurs of rebellion in the CCP for the former’s handling of the corona crisis, the worst ever global humiliation inflicted on China, and the world economies shutting doors on Beijing. With the global economies of the West and those like Australia and Japan in the Pacific snapping trade ties and the US all out to teach China a lesson in Pacific waters over Dragon’s mischief over Taiwan skies and its aggression in the South China Sea, Beijing is faced with a multilateral war front already.
Being a Gujarati who reads the markets before doing a business, PM Modi seems to be in the driver’s seat with full research done about the situation both within the country about its own defence capabilities and what the enemy (China) is going through currently. This is now emerging as a war for survival between two old friends — Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping. Both are nationalists to the core, play to the gallery, have roused high hopes among citizens and have set stiff economic and strategic agendas. While PM Modi made the most of Covid-19 pandemic by winning friends and trade and investment prospects globally, China, instead, has lost a major share of its global supplies and its economy is not what it used to be till a few months back. Unemployment is growing and the world is shutting doors on Beijing with its most lucrative Huawei becoming the first casualty. In fact, insiders say that Jinping and top Beijing leadership are frustrated at India being projected as China’s competitor and next alternative after Covid-19 pandemic crisis turning world economies upside down.
While giving a stern warning to China, PM Modi knows the fact that the world is on India’s side. And that is something worrying many in Beijing circles. In fact, a report in South China Morning Post on Thursday wrote that China’s decision not to release details of how many soldiers might have been hurt or killed in a clash with Indian troops on Monday is probably motivated by a desire to play down the matter ahead of a key meeting between the Chinese and the US delegations in Hawaii. China wants to play it down, says the report.
PM Modi’s message is also a signal that India is ready to take Dragon head on as we may be unmatched in strength of Chinese sea power in the Pacific and the South China Sea, but perhaps Beijing missed the point that we have added to our defence strength by many counts, including our nuclear status, air strips on the borders for speedy mobility to logistics and infrastructure creation, which we had none in 1962.
Chinese social media is already buzzing with the Chinese casualties. All is not well with Beijing and PM Modi knows that well. The quick defence deal to buy 33 Russian jets is just to frustrate Beijing further and keep Russia neutral, if not completely on New Delhi’s side. Purely business instincts of PM Modi!