Not so frank after all

Whatever else you can say about Li Keqiang, the premier of the People's Republic of China, he certainly can come across as frank and open. Even charming. An odd thing for a leader of an authoritarian country, perhaps, and even odder when he's addressing reporters next to our own Sphinx-like prime minister. But all Li's apparently robust frankness cannot disguise the fact that he brought nothing useful to the table with India; and all his charm cannot conceal the fact that New Delhi knows it.

Let's summarise the three big problems for a moment. First, there's uncertainty at what passes for the Sino-Indian border, where two mistrustful armies patrol the same doubly-claimed area; this uncertainty could flare up into confrontation at any time. China's side of the line is well developed, allowing them to move men and materiel much quicker than India can; but India working on improving its side is nevertheless seen in China as deliberate provocation. Second, there's trade. India's trade with China has increased manifold over the past decade; but it is an essentially neo-colonial relationship, with India selling China the raw materials it needs to flood our markets with cheap finished goods. Naturally, this has done dreadful things to our balance of trade with China, the standard consequence of colonial economic relations. Finally, there's Pakistan. China has agreed to build another, larger nuclear reactor for Pakistan, over and above the two that were "grandfathered" in when China joined the nuclear suppliers group (NSG) in 2004. Given that China has shown no inclination to approach the NSG for a waiver allowing this, it does make our law-abiding neighbour's concern that a similar waiver would dent the proliferation regime during the battle for the Indo-US nuclear deal somewhat puzzling in retrospect.

So did Frank Li solve any of these problems? Well, he did at least address the second, and acknowledge that a $30-billion trade deficit in $70 billion worth of trade might be something worth looking at. And what bold moves will be taken to rebalance this? Opening China's markets properly to Indian services? Addressing open questions about the dumping of trade goods in India? Nope. Instead our CEOs, led by Anil Ambani, will meet China's CEOs, led by Chen Yuan of the China Development Bank, and work everything out. The two gentlemen should get along fine; Chen has a long history of lending Ambani money to buy Chinese goods, starting with $1 billion for the Sasan power plant. I have great hopes from this forum. Who wouldn't?

But Li couldn't go further than that. Because China's leaders, "rebalancing towards consumption" or no, appear actually quite happy with the nature of their trade with countries like India. Li repeated the Chinese mantra on the subject, which is that our two economies are "complementary". This is true. China makes things, we mine things. They lend us money, we buy the things they dump on us. Complementary indeed, and not something the Chinese will change out of the goodness of their hearts.

The other issues were barely touched upon in public statements. Li acknowledged that there are occasional problems along the Line of Actual Control - which was hailed as an act of great openness, so low is the bar we set for Chinese leaders - which he implied could all be sorted out by better communication between army commanders on the ground. This is nonsense. In actual fact, it allows every middle-level army commander on either side a veto over the border-securing process. There was no word from Li, none at all, on the central point: whether the Chinese would agree to at least define their own claims on the border - forget about accepting India's. Without that, heavily-armed armies are patrolling in the metaphorical dark. Nor was there even the slightest acknowledgement from Li that India building a road or two on its side of the border should not be seen as a provocative act.

And finally, on Pakistan and the broader strategic neighbourhood, there was a deafening silence in public. Well, except for a sinister-sounding reference to "neighbours" being more useful than "distant relatives" - presumably our American cousins - a phrase that Li claimed was a proverb from antiquity and not something he made up on the spur of the moment. One does wish that Frank Li was perhaps the teeniest little bit franker. For, it is not an easy time in the neighbourhood, and it would be useful to have a clear perspective on what India expects from China on, for example, Afghanistan post-2014. President Hamid Karzai has made no secret of the fact that Pakistan's recent aggressiveness on the border is destabilising his country, and has increased the pressure for Indian military help. China expects to play an ever-greater role in the neighbourhood, and yet isn't exactly doing anything towards peacemaking here.

Li's visit has pleased China's sole sympathetic constituency in India, the anti-American elite that sits in India's foreign ministry, its drawing rooms, its newsrooms and its universities. Elite, I say, because, as a recent survey by Amitabh Mattoo and Rory Medcalf shows, most Indians actually want closer relations with the US, and have a healthy distrust of China. Chinese leaders' trips to Delhi, which come with a shutdown of the Metro and central Delhi in the sweltering heat, and the pre-emptive round-up of Tibetans, rarely do anything to inspire trust in the rest of us. And, frank or not, Li Keqiang's was no exception.

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mihir.sharma@bsmail.in