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Business News/ News / World/  We have diplomatic bandwidth to accommodate both US, China: Narendra Modi
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We have diplomatic bandwidth to accommodate both US, China: Narendra Modi

PM says he looks forward to rekindling ties with the US, where he is to travel this week, in an interview to CNN

Days after hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not see rising China as a threat to India, considering it instead a potential partner in development. Photo: Hindustan TimesPremium
Days after hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not see rising China as a threat to India, considering it instead a potential partner in development. Photo: Hindustan Times

New Delhi: Days after hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not see rising China as a threat to India, considering it instead a potential partner in development.

In a television interview to CNN on Sunday, his first since taking office on 26 May, Modi indicated that India had the diplomatic bandwidth to accommodate the US as well as China—nations that view each other as a strategic threat.

In a message to the US, where he is to travel this week, Modi said he looked forward to rekindling ties and placing them on a higher trajectory.

When asked about the rise of China, its claims over islands and waters in the East China Sea and the South China Sea that have angered some of its smaller neighbours including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, and whether India, which has a border dispute with China was worried about it, Modi replied that India, with a population of 1.25 billion, was “different".

“We can’t run our country if we get worried about every small thing. At the same time, we can’t close our eyes to problems. We are not living in the 18th century. This is an era of partnership. Everyone will have to seek and extend help mutually," Modi said.

China, he added, was “focused on economic development. It’s hardly the sign of a country that wants to be isolated. We should have trust in China’s understanding and have faith that it would accept global laws and will play its role in cooperating and moving forward."

Modi’s comments come despite Chinese intrusions into Indian territory in at least two places—Demchok and Chumar in Ladakh—in the past weeks. Both sides frequently accuse each other of intruding into their territory—a situation arising out of their undemarcated border dating back to their brief 1962 war.

On 17 September, Modi received Xi in Ahmedabad and gave him an exceptionally warm welcome. The next day, however, the Prime Minister at a media event publicly outlined India’s concerns on the border dispute and urged China to resolve it at the earliest. A joint statement released at the end of Xi’s three-day visit said India and China had agreed to develop “a closer developmental partnership" that will be “a core component" of their strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity. Both sides also reaffirmed their commitment to consolidating the strategic partnership “on the basis of the principle of mutual and equal security and mutual sensitivity for each other’s concerns and aspirations".

Asked if he thought China had an advantage over India, given its authoritarian system of governance vis-à-vis India’s democracy, sometimes blamed for the delays in decision-making, Modi pointed out that there were many democracies that have clocked high growth rates. “You can’t say that growth is not possible because of democracy. Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA." It was democracy, Modi added, that had brought him to power despite his humble background.

With Modi scheduled to embark on a landmark visit this week to the US—after having been denied a visa for nearly a decade—the Prime Minister said that his past political equation with the US would not cast a shadow on future ties.

Modi was refused a US visa over the massacre of mostly Muslims in the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat. He was alleged to have turned a blind eye to the violence as Gujarat chief minister.

Modi protested his innocence, and earlier this year a court cleared him of charges of neglect. The US lifted the visa ban only after Modi was declared prime minister-elect on 16 May, coinciding with a congratulatory call from US President Barack Obama who also invited him to visit Washington. Obama will host a private dinner for Modi on 29 September, and the Modi-Obama summit is scheduled for 30 September in Washington.

In the television interview, when asked if India and the US could develop a genuinely strategic alliance, Modi replied in the affirmative.

“And with great confidence I say ‘yes’... Indians and Americans have coexistence in their natural temperament. Now, yes, for sure, there have been ups and downs in our relationship in the last century. But from the end of the 20th century to the first decade of the 21st century, we have witnessed a big change. Our ties have deepened. India and the United States of America are bound together, by history and by culture. These ties will deepen further," the Prime Minister said.

Modi spoke in Hindi and an English translation of the interview transcript was supplied by CNN.

Relations between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest went beyond New Delhi and Washington, he said. “It’s a much larger sphere. The good thing is that the mood of both Delhi and Washington is in harmony with this understanding. Both sides have played a role in this," he said alluding to the people-to-people ties, the Indian diaspora in the US, and the large numbers of Indian students who travel to the US for higher education each year.

Asked if India would return to its high-growth path and sustain the momentum, Modi said he had a game plan for restoring Asia’s third largest economy to its high gross domestic product (GDP) growth trajectory. He, however, refused to be drawn into comparisons between the growth rates of India and China, saying that “India must become only India... We have fallen from where we were before. But now we have the chance to rise again. If you see the details of the last five or 10 centuries, you will see that India and China have grown at similar pace. Their contributions to global GDP have risen in parallel, and fallen in parallel. Today’s era once again belongs to Asia. India and China are both growing rapidly, together."

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal said Modi had handled the questions “very well".

Modi, Sibal said, “put the whole issue of China in a different perspective, which is that India was not concerned like the smaller countries were and that India has the confidence to deal with any problems that may arise".

On ties with the US, Sibal said Modi had not said anything substantial, though he had focused on the positives—that there were many layers to the relationship with the US, not just the political.

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Published: 22 Sep 2014, 12:39 AM IST
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