Home & Away

Indrani Bagchi Take your ringside seats, people, as another US-China tournament of shadows unfolds. When Donald Trump spoke to Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-Wen and challenged established US-China policy, many parts of Asia, India included, quietly cheered. As expected, China retaliated -- by stealing a US Navy drone from South China Sea, testing both a departing president and an incoming one.  Bill Clinton had the Taiwan Straits crisis, George Bush was greeted with the embarrassment of the EP-3E crash, and Obama was challenged when five Chinese navy ships harassed the USNS Impeccable. Trump is being greeted ahead of his term but we await events with interest, because they could determine global events of the coming four years. Both US and China are in a dangerous part of the field. China has to protect the aura of “core leader” Xi Jinping, who is driving the combined tigers of nationalism, military modernization, anti-corruption and a slowing economy. The US pi...

Indrani Bagchi In a few weeks, when Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, China will be tempted to make a Mongolia out of India. It shouldn’t. 2017 is not turning out to be anything like how China imagined at all, just when Xi Jinping is getting ready to become a leader without a successor. Foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar stated 2017 would be a year when Indian foreign policy would “invest” more in China. The newly minted strategic dialogue in Beijing though showed the distance that still needs to be traveled, despite the gloss put on it by India. China is nowhere close to addressing India’s concerns, but India and China are nothing if not mature, pragmatic powers, so they decided to do stuff together in Afghanistan. Not wildly exciting, and they continue to have divergent political tools. China is pushing “reconciliation” with Taliban, India is not. India is clear-eyed about Taliban hosting LeT, JeM etc against us. China is realizing that Uighur ETIM m...

Indrani Bagchi Washington mavens have a new parlour game – called “impeachment & removal”, the game is all about devising new and innovative ways of putting President Donald Trump out to grass. But Trump has danced with Saudi leaders, eaten chocolate cake with Xi Jinping and burgers with Netanyahu, played golf with Abe and been blessed by the Pope. In a few weeks, it will be his turn to get the Modi hug. India has watched with apprehension as the Trump administration moved from being a promising tabula rasa to the OMG-what-will-they-do-next roller coaster. The China relationship is … now, where is it exactly? The chocolate cake came with 59 missiles to Syria; overnight Xi Jinping found himself holding the North Korean nuclear can, fearfully contemplating a THAAD system in South Korea when he has more important things like the 19 th  Party Congress on his mind. In fact, Xi has reasons to be a worried man. A readout of the Xi-Trump discussions shows the depth of unpredict...

By Indrani Bagchi China had a reasonably successful week — Beijing ordered Vietnam to stop drilling for oil in the South China Sea, or bad things would happen. The country that delivered a crushing blow to the Chinese in 1979 reportedly stood down. If only these obstinate Indians would learn a lesson. The India-China standoff in the Doklam area, which is Bhutanese territory that China wants, is almost 40 days old. During this time, the official Chinese rhetoric has been a lot like that nursery rhyme. China has “huff’d and puff’d” to blow this house down — reminded us of the humiliation of 1962, described the PLA as a mountain and warned that “time was running out for India to blink.” On this side of the Himalayas, the Indian government has held its nerve and the media has, by and large, held its tongue. Modi smiled and chatted with Xi Jinping in Hamburg, did not forget either Xi’s or Li’s birthdays, and now NSA Ajit Doval is travelling to Beijing to talk with Yang Jiechi later...

Indrani Bagchi, TNN Jun 22, 2010 NEW DELHI: The proposed China-Pakistan nuclear deal could spell trouble for India's own membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, severely upsetting the calculations of the government here. India had hoped that the New Zealand plenary meeting scheduled for later this week might move the process along for India to be eventually recognized as a formal member of the group. India had told the NSG that following the Indo-US nuclear deal, its laws and regulations had been harmonized with the global body, and that it was ready to be a member of the group. This was emphasized by the government in its last meeting with the NSG troika earlier this year. Instead, there is a growing anger, albeit impotent, within the 45-member group as they confront a virtual fait accompli by China "informing" them of its decision to build two new nuclear reactors for Pakistan, a proliferation rogue. But such is the growing clout ...