G20 summit: Reading into the significance of the Modi-Xi handshake

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Image: PTI)

A handshake between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit host and Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s dinner in Bali earlier this week has led to speculations on what the gesture meant in the context of Sino-Indian relations.

Since the April 2020 military stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), India has refrained from engaging China at the highest political level.

In Bali, Modi and Xi shook hands and briefly spoke to each other and smiled before moving on to meet other leaders at the banquet hall.

Though the Indian Prime Minister and the Chinese President also had several other structured meetings on the sidelines of the summit with other countries, they did not show any inclination to hold one between them.

However, the handshake shows a re-thinking and a shift in India’s earlier position.

But it is not an indication of any change so far of India’s stand vis-à-vis the military stand-off with China at the LAC.

India had engaged with China at the foreign minister’s level on several occasions. The military commanders and diplomats of the two sides have also met regularly to discuss the existing situation at the LAC and to find ways to ease the tension by withdrawing their troops from the remaining friction points. But India has not shown any inclination to organise any meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of the summits the two leaders attended.

Part of the reason for the Modi-Xi handshake may have been prompted by the fact that India now holds the presidency of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the G20.

China is a member of both organisations and perhaps this is likely to pave the way for a more structured engagement between the Indian Prime Minister and the Chinese President in the coming days to remove the strains from their bilateral relations, spoiled by the situation at the LAC.

The brief interaction between Modi and Xi was the first face-to-face interaction between the two leaders since October 2019 when they met at an informal bilateral summit in Mamallapuram. They had met at the SCO summit in Uzbekistan this September but did not exchange any words.

In June, India also participated in the BRICS summit under the Chinese presidency. But since it was held virtually because of travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic in China, there was no scope for a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders.

In Bali, the Indian Prime Minister’s decision to walk towards Xi and exchange greetings, was part of a courtesy gesture. But perhaps, it was more than that.

As the next host of the G20, India is keen that all the members of the group actively participate in all the meetings and the summit under the Indian presidency.

Modi had met all the G20 leaders, either informally or in a structured engagement on the sidelines of the summit and his interaction with the Chinese President was part of that exercise.

However, it did not go beyond exchanging greetings, and lasted only a few minutes.

India has made it clear that a normalisation in Sino-Indian relations can only take place when the situation at the LAC goes back to the pre-April 2020 situation.

Since the Galwan clashes two years back, the two sides have withdrawn their soldiers from some of the “flash-points”. But other such areas remain from where the Chinese have so far refused to move their troops.

Indian diplomats have argued that if Delhi were to organise a structured meeting between Modi and Xi, the Chinese side will interpret that as India’s willingness to accept Beijing’s argument that the situation at the LAC was now normal and the two sides should resume their cooperation and engagement in economic and other areas of mutual interest.

However, under its presidency of both SCO and the G20, India will also host the summit meetings of the two groups.

It is part of the tradition for the host country to hold separate bilateral meetings with all the members in the group.

This means, next year India will have to decide on how it wants to approach the two meetings it is likely to have on the sidelines of the forthcoming summits in Delhi with China.

Xi Jinping is likely to be present in both these meetings, and as things stand, they may both be in-person rather than in the virtual format.

Another key element for an engagement between Modi and Xi also stems from the fact that both the leaders are likely to lead their respective countries for a few more years.

Xi has already been re-elected for a third term as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Political pundits in India also predict a victory for the BJP under Modi’s leadership in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

This means that despite their outstanding differences and the prevailing situation at the LAC, India will have to engage China under Xi’s leadership.

But as the recent meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart showed that despite differences on outstanding issues, the two sides can find ways of engaging with each other to ensure their differences do not turn into a conflict.

Perhaps, India is also likely to follow that example as it engages with China at the highest political level.

But even if it decides so, it will continue to keep up its guard along the LAC to deal with any future encroachment into its territory and military escalation at the borders with China.