Indian reaction on China

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan has proven to be unbearable for Indian politicians and media. Unable to contain their anger at the friendship enjoyed by Pakistan and China, Indian media went so far as to accuse China of stabbing India in the back.
Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan was the first by a Chinese head of state to a long-standing friend in nine years. During Jinping’s visit Pakistan and China signed 51 deals including investment in a $46 billion economic corridor. Of the total, projects worth $28 billion were inaugurated during Xi’s two-day visit.
Sources in the ruling party – the PMLN – confirmed that $11 billion will be set aside for infrastructure projects while the remaining $35 billion will be invested in energy projects which will rid Pakistan of the acute energy shortfall it has been grappling to overcome.
Stabbed in the back?: When Xi Jinping visited India in September 2014, China agreed to build two industrial parks, investing $20 billion over the next five years. Modi had expressed his pleasure at Jinping’s arrival only months after he had taken the office of prime minister.
The deals China inked with India in 2014, besides the creation of two industrial parks, included cooperation towards strengthening India’s railways, an agreement on peaceful use of outer space, an agreement to establish a twinning relationship between Shanghai and Mumbai as well as an agreement for co-production between Indian and Chinese media outlets.
The Indian media began praising China and President Xi Jinping ahead of his visit terming him a ‘friend’ who will come bearing ‘gifts’.
Zee News brushed aside skirmishes taking place between the armed forces of the two countries and focused on highlighting the approximately ‘$100 billion’ investment China was to make in India. The news network highlighted that deals with China would be three times in value compared to deals India inked with Japan.
It was reported by Zee News that Narendra Modi was going to receive Xi Jinping at the airport in Ahmedabad breaking long-standing protocols. Yet a little over six months later, the same news network has labeled China a ‘back-stabber’ bearing gifts of ‘treason’ and a superpower that is spreading its wings by incurring into Indian territory and at times by partnering with Pakistan, unnecessarily.
It is not clear whether it is the $46 billion dollar investment that has proven unbearable for India or whether it is the “sweeter than honey and stronger than steel” statement used to describe Pak-China relations.
It is possible that India’s obsession with itself is behind the allegations being cooked up in Indian newsrooms; that China is only helping Pakistan on the surface and the real target is India. That China’s investment in the economic corridor is not to reduce the time Chinese goods spend en route but only to surround India.
The obsession becomes obvious when the construction of Zulfiqarabad – an economic zone in Thatta – which will allow investors and industrialists to initiate mega development projects is viewed not as development in the region, but feared because it is less than 100 kilometers from Sir Creek – another bone of contention between Pakistan and India.
President Jinping may have inked deals worth $26 billion more with Sharif than he did with Modi; but the imaginary knife India is complaining about was not put there by Beijing; more likely by newsrooms in New Delhi instead.
Email: ovais.jafar@geo.tv