The Wuhan meetings signify an incremental shift in China's position on India as well as each country buying time for the next phase of bilateral relations, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'We should not have waited for the political crisis in Nepal to erupt before being galvanised into action,' says Shyam Saran. 'We should have seen what was coming and not accepted assurances from the leaders of the political parties at their face value.'
Unless the Taliban goofs up in a big way, which seems highly unlikely, we are looking at a regime that will be around for quite a long while and present a level of governance that the puppets of the richest and most advanced countries failed to provide, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'It is advisable for Indian interlocutors to follow the Chinese tactic of repeating the Indian position, both for the record and to test the Chinese negotiator's resolve and intentions.' A riveting excerpt from former foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale's The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate With India.
The cascade of cordiality on both sides after the Modi-Sharif handshake in Paris was preceded by much planning and even goading from UK, US and Germany.
'While economic ties are making incremental progress, it is in the security and strategic domains that the India-Japan synergy is more compelling,' says Dr Rajaram Panda.
Brutal and ruthless, with terrible human rights records, these autocrats will welcome Narendra Modi to their realm this coming week.
'India needs to learn in Kashmir how to spread development.' 'Pakistan needs to learn in Balochistan how to spread development.' 'China needs to learn in Xinjiang and Tibet.' 'And if they can show tangible benefits, there will be less terrorism.' 'No one wakes up in the morning saying 'I want to kill myself', right?'
We must see New Delhi's position as a signal of competition to the Chinese grand design for the 21st century world, says Nitin Pai.
The two countries also asked all nations to stop cross-border movement of terrorists and asserted that a decisive collective response from the international community without 'double standards and selectivity' was required to combat the threat of terrorism.
'An opportunity is at hand to think big and recast the India-China relationship on a new template, which would help the pursuit of our country's dream of major power status,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Chinese chief negotiator Ambassador Wang Qun told ANI on Friday, "NSG will not take up India's case as of now. There are differences on admitting non-Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty members. Signing the NPT first is one of five criteria (for membership). These have not been set by China, but by group as a whole."
President Xi Jinping's visit may put relations between India and China on a new trajectory
Once again an Indian prime minister has realised that with Pakistan and China, things will not move as he wishes.
'As the first leaders of their respective countries born after Indian Independence and the Chinese Liberation, Modi and Xi would be expected to have the ability to overcome the traditional mindsets and the hierarchical nature of their official/bureaucratic establishments,' say Alka Acharya and Jabin T Jacob.
Srikanth Kondapalli on what to expect from the seventh BRICS summit meeting to be held in Russia in July.
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
'We are witnessing a spectacle of breathtakingly creative diplomacy at work, riveted on the firm foundations of the country's strategic autonomy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The danger today is that out of sheer fatigue and exasperation, the US might cut loose and exit from Afghanistan leaving it to the region to cope with the debris, which it is ill-equipped to handle,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It's a packed 5-nation, 9-day, visit for Prime Minister Modi as he heads to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, apart from Ufa in Russia.
'There is much symbolism in President Pranab Mukherjee's participation in the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.'
Immediate NSG membership will not help India realise its nuclear ambitions any faster. It could have easily left the process take its own course, instead of running a high-stakes campaign to get in, says B S Raghavan.
Talks between Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to improve the relations got off on a rough note at the northeastern Chinese port city of Tianjin, with Xie launching a blistering attack on Washington, accusing it of being the "owner of coercive diplomacy".
China has launched a host of reforms to halt the slow down of the economy, which is hovering around seven per cent with forecasts that it would dip down further.
One thing Beijing must understand is that India is not obsessed with being a threat to China but only wants a rightful place for itself in the world, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'As China rises and India grows to reclaim their earlier positions on the world stage as two of the largest economies and most important countries, there will indeed be some contention between these two powers.' 'There will also be plenty of space and room for cooperation amongst the two of us.' 'As our economic size increases to match the fact that we are the two most populous nations on earth, it will be all the more important for us to keep the interests of our peoples as well as those of the rest of the world in mind.' 'We shall have to grow together rather than as separate and disparate entities,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's ambassador to China -- in the 7th annual lecture of the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents on March 1, 2019.
'One lesson to emerge out of the Modi-Putin summit is that India can be more self-confident that it possesses inherent strengths to leverage its interlocutors to influence Pakistani policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'It was China's rise that caused the New Cold War in Asia as it prompted the United States to rebalance its forces in Asia to experiment with engagement and containment at the same time,' says T P Sreenivasan.
The PM on Tuesday officially announced his visit to China from May 14 to 16.
'It is inevitable that people around the world -- including from America and China -- will have different viewpoints over different issues'
'Chinese companies have acquired stakes in 13 ports in Europe, including in Greece, Spain and, most recently, Belgium.' 'Those ports handle about 10 percent of Europe's shipping container capacity,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
To persist with talks in the face of continuing terrorism that puts hundreds of Indian lives at stake is not only naive but morally repugnant and ethically unacceptable. It is time to see through this charade and abandon a path of high risk and no returns, says Vivek Gumaste.
'How can a State, which claims to be a responsible power, unilaterally grab a "disputed" area to build a road on it?' asks Claude Arpi.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
New Delhi has been in 'close contact' with the Bhutan government on the unfolding developments.
The total deaths from the more than two-month-old outbreak as reported on Thursday stood at 1,367, with the total number of confirmed cases mounting to 59,804, health officials were quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
'The Modi government's lurch toward America has not brought it any dividends so far. The Western world is simply not in a position to make big investments in India... India needs to take a leap of faith vis-a-vis China.'
India on Friday sought resolute and comprehensive global action against terror infrastructure, saying the challenge must be taken seriously as different "theatres" are getting interconnected through terror networks as well as globalisation of the "supply chain of ideology".
