Gypped by Xi: Where is the $100 billion that China promised India?

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Chinese President Xi Jinping's India visit (17-19 September) has not gone off as well as it could have. The two sides could have made it into a roaring success which it isn't.

Forget about the promised $100 billion Chinese investment which was to be pledged during Xi's India visit but did not materialize. Forget about Xi's sweet talk of India and China being two bodies in one spirit but saw a starkly different ground realities as demonstrated by Chinese incursions into India were starkly different.

Xi's India visit would be best remembered for the Chinese incursions rather than the 16 bilateral agreements India and China signed at the national level, apart from three agreements signed at the state level involving Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The biggest USP of Xi's India visit, even before it began, was meant to be the India-China camaraderie in the economic arena with the Chinese promise of pumping $100 billion worth investments into India in the next five years, almost thrice the amount pledged by Tokyo conveyed during PM Modi's recent visit to Japan.
PTI

PTI

This mammoth investment figure was announced by Liu Youfa, China's consul-general in Mumbai.

Liu was quoted by the Times of India on 13 September as stating thus: "On a conservative estimate, I can say that we will commit investments of over $100 billion or thrice the investments committed by Japan during our President Xi Jinping's visit next week. These will be made in setting up of industrial parks, modernization of railways, highways, ports, power generation, distribution and transmission, automobiles, manufacturing, food processing and textile industries."

But that promise did not fructify. All that India got during Xi's India trip was just over $30 billion, much less than the $35 billion investment pledge made by Japan.

In concrete terms, one of the 16 bilateral agreements China signed with India during Xi's maiden visit to this country was a five-year trade and economic development plan agreed to by the two sides' commerce ministries wherein China committed an investment of $20 billion in India over the next five years.

China has also committed an investment of $6.8 billion in its two industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Over and above that 24 Chinese companies have sewn up investment contracts with Indian companies worth $3.6 billion.

All this put together comes to $30.4 billion of Chinese investment pledges in India for the next five years, if it comes. This is far less than the $35 billion investment Japan pledged to India over the next five years.

The Chinese side is learnt to have orally conveyed their commitment to invest $20 billion in India every year for the next five years, thus bringing up the $100 billion investment figure. But these are only oral pledges.

Xi's India visit has ended up as a bit of a dampener for India. While the promised $100 billion investment money did not show up in concrete terms, the visit was marred by the third and latest Chinese incursion into Chumar in Jammu and Kashmir's Ladakh region.

Significantly, the Chumar stand-off was resolved shortly after the Modi-Xi talks, conveying a loud and clear political message to the Modi government.

It will take some time to figure out why Xi did not live up to the $100 billion investment publicly touted by the senior Chinese diplomat.

It is possible that Xi may have decided to hold his horses at the last moment in view of President Pranab Mukherjee's highly significant Vietnam visit which produced two crucial India-Vietnam agreements in the fields of oil exploration and defence just before Xi set foot in India.

In any case, the strategic content of the visit was a big let-down as demonstrated by the Chinese incursions which were alive till the time Xi held talks with Modi. Two of the three Chinese incursions are still alive.

This only shows that Asia's number one and number three economies – China and India, respectively – still continue to grapple with a huge trust deficit.

Xi's India visit should have addressed this vital issue, but it did not. Thus, overall Xi's India visit has proven to be a much-hyped event which is actually nothing more than a flash in the pan.

*The writer is FirstPost Consulting Editor and a strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha.

Gypped by Xi: Where is the $100 billion that China promised India? - Firstpost
 

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The PM asked Xi about his past and the struggle he faced after his father Xi Zhongxun, was purged from the Communist Party. He then wanted to know about Xi's development model for China and dwelt on the Chinese President's efforts to fight corruption. By all accounts, Xi was not drawn into longer conversations with Modi while being courteous and formal most times
Straight talk on incursions sets the template for closer business ties and incremental progress on thorny issues : NATION - India Today



The Images of the PRC president being down-to-earth and uncharacteristic and even being led to behave in a open friendly manner is worth over 100 Billion (to both India and PRC people).

But will the Communist Party leadership and power centers in PRC approve of such contradictory behavior and with border issue becoming spun "out of control" some say. The training and job description made and make sure that PRC leaders do not miscarry.

A little toothache can paralyse entire body, Modi tells XI Jinping - The Times of India

Sources said Xi had told Modi on Wednesday in Ahmedabad that the PLA troops who had advanced in the Chumar sector, triggering the standoff, had been asked to retreat to their original position. Xi made the claim after Modi took up the incursion issue with him.

Other members of the Chinese delegation also told their Indian counterparts on Thursday in New Delhi that the Chinese soldiers had been asked to go back, even as they pleaded ignorance about the provocation.

Of course, the Indian side, knowing that the PLA does not enjoy the autonomy that the Chinese visitors sought to bestow upon it in this instance, treated the alibi as a feint and was not taken in by it.

As the military face-off continued on Friday, it was clear that the visit of the Chinese president, which held the promise of improving ties, may have in fact aggravated the trust deficit because of the Ladakh incursions which, the government here is pretty sure, were timed to coincide with the engagement.
charming:

adjective
1. very pleasant or attractive.
"a charming country cottage"

exclamation
1. used as an ironic expression of displeasure or disapproval.









HIGHLIGHTS-China Premier Wen Jiabao's comments at NPC press conference | Reuters

"I want to say a few words at this point, since the founding of the People's Republic China, under the leadership of the Party and the government, our country's modernisation drive has made great achievements. Yet at the same time, we've also taken detours and have learnt hard lessons. Since the Third Plenum of of the 11th CPC Central Committee, in particular since the central authorities took the decision on the correct handling of relevant historical issues, we have established the line of thinking and that we should free our minds and seek truth from facts and we have formulated the basic guidelines of our Party. In particular, we've taken the major decision of conducting reform and opening up in China, a decision that's crucial for China's future and destiny.

"What has happened shows that any practice that we take must be based on the experience and lessons we've gained from history and it must serve the people's interests. The practice that we take must be able to stand the test of history and I believe the people fully recognise this point and I have full confidence in our future."
Bo Xilai's Sacking Signals Showdown In China's Communist Party - The Daily Beast

Party press conferences in China are not supposed to be exciting events—certainly not mere months before the leadership hands over power to the next generation, and all cadres must stage impressive displays of party unity. So Wen Jiabao's three-hour encounter with foreign and national journalists at the end of the National People's Congress on Wednesday would, at any time, have been nothing short of extraordinary. Here was China's Prime Minister conjuring up the horrors of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, declaring the Arabs' desire for democracy to be an undeniable force, challenging the Chinese to see the urgency of political reform and delivering a barely veiled attack on the "Red Princeling" Bo Xilai. Wen's speech made it was plain to every person watching that, as far as he and his fellow modernizers were concerned, there is no going back; China is on the road to a future very different from its Maoist past.
 

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