China and India are rivals for power in Asia, and India is not going to shy away from asserting itself. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:
Modi’s seemingly innocuous but deliberately scandalous tweet conveyed the message that India is prepared to play hardball with China during his third term.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning confirmed on Thursday that her country has officially protested to India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly thanked Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te on X for congratulating him on his re-election. She explained that “India has made serious political commitments on [the one-China principle] and is supposed to recognize, be alarmed about and resist the Taiwan authorities’ political calculations”, hence why Beijing is up in arms about this tweet.
The Indian leader knew what he was doing though since he intended to send an unmistakable signal to China as the first manifestation of his third term’s foreign policy. These two Asian Great Powers have been embroiled in a fierce competition over the past four years that almost brought them to the brink of war in summer 2020 after their forces lethally clashed over the Galwan River Valley. The resultant border impasse toxified their ties and now appears to finally be frustrating Prime Minister Modi.
Multiple rounds of negotiations failed to resolve this dispute, especially India’s allegation that Chinese forces remain on Delhi’s side of the Line of Actual Control between them in the Himalayas after having illegally crossed into there in summer 2020, which it claims was the reason behind the aforesaid clashes. Instead of trying to freeze their dispute, China escalated matters by reaffirming its claims to India’s Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing considers to be “South Tibet” despite only briefly controlling it in 1962.
India is also closely monitoring China’s ongoing border talks with Bhutan due to concerns that Beijing could obtain control over the Doklam Plateau from which it could then threaten the “Chicken’s Neck” connecting “mainland India” with its seven Northeastern States. On top of that, some speculate that China clandestinely armed militants in Manipur ahead of last spring’s unrest, while intelligence officials accused China of masterminding a massive misinformation warfare campaign last fall.
A good chunk of the world’s population there as neighbors and you can afford to push them around in a wheelbarrow when you have massive cannon fodder.
And they have nukes along with Pakistan?
Oh, my.
Once saw a documentary about their [India] nookular program which was scarier than a horror flick complete with victims of radiation. (s/)
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