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China news tagged with: India (157)

• The Long March: Chinese Workers in India

  

  Indian media has reported recently on the proliferation of Chinese laborers working in the country for Chinese firms in violation of visa rules. Outlook India published a lengthy report on the topic:

  It’s after sundown in Chandankiyari, a village near Bokaro in Jharkhand, and the only sound audible is of howling hyenas in the distance. But strain the ears and you catch snatches of a foreign movie playing. The film, strangely, is in Mandarin and it’s for the benefit of the hundreds of Chinese workers here at the site for a steel plant. Watching one of their movies on the big screen is a relaxing way to end the day.

  They are not alone. Across the country, several thousands of Chinese workers are at work on infrastructure projects bagged by Chinese contractors. But the arrangement is not without controversy—the hordes of unskilled/semi-skilled imports from China are taking jobs from the unemployed Indian. One estimate put their total number—skilled and unskilled together—at around 25,000. Things have come to a head of late—at least three instances of xenophobic violence have been reported between Indian and Chinese workers in less than a year. Differences arise notably out of language problems and the “obscene” pay disparities—domestic workers get Rs 87 a day while a Chinese co-worker, according to one account from an Indian worker, gets Rs 1,700 a day. Things get that much more tricky because these workers are here in complete violation of Indian visa guidelines which prohibit entry of such labour.

  The report also includes a comparison of the treatment of Indian and Chinese workers employed by Chinese firms:

  Our Workers

  * Paid minimum wage, takes home Rs 87 per day after deductions
  * Have no uniforms
  * Enjoy no added benefits
  * Considered not equally “efficient”
  * Speak no English or Mandarin

  ***

  Their Workers

  * Chinese co-worker said to earn Rs 1,700 a day
  * Have uniforms with bright colours
  * Live in AC barracks with Chinese food and TV
  * ”Dedicated” and “deadline-oriented”
  * Speak no Hindi or English

  Also, from Indian Express, see “Visa rules take Chinese off apple belt road project, Himachal govt upset”:

  The Centre’s decision to insist on employment visas for Chinese workers in India has upset the government of Himachal Pradesh where, in the Theog-Rohru apple cultivation belt, Chinese workers and engineers have been made to stop work on a road project, key to the shelf life of the state’s famed produce.

  China-based Longjian Road and Bridge Company Limited had been awarded a contract by the Himachal Pradesh government to construct an 80-km road.

  » Read more
  • October 31, 2009 4:45 PM

• India, China Stand-Off Over Separate Visas

  

  From India Times:

  Taking a serious view of China’s latest move to issue “separate” visas to Indian passport holders from Jammu and Kashmir, the government has told Beijing in no uncertain terms to put an immediate end to this practice or face a similar discrimination, besides fewer and tougher visas, for its own citizens seeking Indian visas.

  The ministry of external affairs took up the matter with the Chinese embassy here and asked Beijing to stop discriminating against Indian nationals on the basis of their “ethnicity” and “domicile”.

  The MHA, which handles immigration matters, has made it clear that it will not allow Indian passport holders with a non-stamped Chinese visa to leave the country. Also, it conveyed to Beijing through the MEA to either stop the practice of issuing Chinese visas to J&K and Arunachal Pradesh residents on a separate piece of paper — as against the stamped visas issued to all other Indian citizens — right away, or face a similar discriminatory regime in processing of Chinese applications for an Indian visa.

  “How would they feel if India only offers a stamped visa to Tibetans while issuing visas on a separate paper for the applications residing in other parts of China,” commented a senior MHA official.

  » Read more
  • October 1, 2009 9:58 PM

• M D Nalapat: India to China: “Treat Us As Equals”

  

  From the Pakistan Observer:

  Unlike in the US, where experts have a decisive say in the formulation of foreign policy, in India the political establishment is reluctant to cede space to experts while determining policy towards other countries. Since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-64), successive Prime Ministers have fashioned policy less on the basis of ground reality than on their own predelictions and political needs. The result has been policies that often act only as short-term palliatives, without resolving core issues. And because the power of the elected Prime Minister is constrained only by his council of ministers and Parliament, policies get implemented that usually have little support among the people or even the bulk of the cadre of the ruling party or parties

  An example is “non-alignment”, which resulted in India failing in the 1960s to reap the dividend (of becoming a source for equipment and other procurement) that the Asian tiger economies of South Korea and Singapore got because of the huge expenses incurred in the region by the US. Interestingly, when the PRC was formed in 1949 and for more than a decade thereafter, China had a per capita income half that of India. Today, the situation is reversed. And while countries such as South Korea had a standard of living close to what was then the case in India just forty years ago, today that country is an advanced economy, while India has 300 million desperately poor people. Yes, for the 300 million “middle class” in India, the country is beginning to shine. But for the rest, life is still extremely dismal

  It was the Congress Party’s first prime minister outside the Nehru family to complete a full term (of 5 years), Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao (PVN Rao), who in 1992 began to unshackle both the economy and foreign policy from the Colonial-Cold War past. Rao recognized Israel, and began the “Look East” policy that reversed two decades of Delhi’s neglect towards the present ASEAN group. He made several efforts to coax the US to enter into the same kind of alliance with India that Delhi had enjoyed with Moscow for four decades, but met indifference from a Clinton administration that focussed only on two touchy areas, nuclear capability and Kashmir. Bill Clinton was blind to the multiple links that were developing between his country and India during his eight years in office (1993-2001), links that comprised hundreds of thousands of Indian students and migrants heading towards the US, as well as numerous business and other partnerships. Finally, the volume of such US-India interaction became too much for Clinton to continue to ignore, and he visited India during his final months in office, charming hearts liberally.

  Professor M.D. Nalapat is director of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in Manipal, India. A gold medalist in economics from Bombay University, Professor Nalapat’s original theories include the India-China-Russia Trilateral Alliance (1983).

  » Read more
  • August 3, 2009 12:40 PM

• Jayadeva Ranade: It Takes Two To Tango

  

  Jayadeva Ranade is a former additional secretary in the cabinet secretariat. He writes on the Indian Times:

  The global geopolitical order has been undergoing a transformation in recent years. The transition heralds the emergence of new centres of

  influence and power in Asia. The growth of India, China and Japan, simultaneously for the first time in history, accentuates the change. The two civilisations on either side of the Himalayas, together accounting for one-third of the world’s population, now have the prospect of influencing global affairs in an unprecedented manner. The window of opportunity is shrinking, however, and only strategic statesman-like policies will ensure that aspirations do not prove illusory.

  Rajiv Gandhi, as prime minister, took a major step to ease tensions and dispel suspicion when he shrugged off conventional advice and travelled to Beijing in December 1988. With this single gesture he broke the ice that had frozen bilateral relations for 34 years. China acknowledged it as a ‘major event’. Rajiv was received by top Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, when in-depth talks on the boundary issue were held. It was agreed that these would be settled through peaceful, friendly discussions.

  … Rising bilateral trade and exchange of high-level visits do not by themselves suggest normalisation of relations. There is need for mutual trust. The publication of toughly worded articles critical of India and dismissive of its conciliatory efforts, as recently in the People’s Daily and Global Times, a subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, do not help.

  Beijing needs to seriously begin dispelling mounting suspicion about Chinese intentions. It needs to take verifiable bold initiatives, the easiest of which is to cease border intrusions and not reopen settled issues like Sikkim. This should be reinforced by an initiative calculated to address India’s sensitivities and interests. Otherwise, the already glacial pace of normalisation will grind to a halt under the weight of suspicion and doubt.

  » Read more
  • July 16, 2009 2:20 PM

• Nervous China May Attack India by 2012: Expert

  

  On possible international consequences of China’s domestic challenges, here is one perception from an Indian expert, from Times of India:

  A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.

  “China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century,” Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.

  Verma said the recession has “shut the Chinese exports shop”, creating an “unprecedented internal social unrest” which in turn, was severely threatening the grip of the Communists over the society.

  » Read more
  • July 14, 2009 7:06 AM

• Editorial Comment: Ambush At ADB

  

  From the India Times:

  China has sought to scuttle the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) disbursal of development funds to India amounting to $2.9 billion. India requires $60 million specifically for a watershed development project in Arunachal Pradesh. But China doesn’t want Arunachal which it considers “disputed territory” to be part of any plans financed by the bank. As the largest donor to ADB after the US and Japan, China appears to think it can steamroll the bank into toeing its line. Its conduct is in keeping with its recent objections to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s and President Pratibha Patil’s visits to Arunachal.

  Indian leaders, surely, don’t need Beijing’s okay to tour parts of their own country. It’s, therefore, disappointing that ADB should seem to endorse China’s untenable position by asking India to break the deadlock ‘bilaterally’. Why China has muscle-flexed at the ADB lends itself to speculation. By internationalising a bilateral issue, some may say it is trying to trip India, which the world recognises as a vibrant democracy and an impressive growth story. Others may argue that China is messaging Asia at large about its clout. Or that it may be firing over India’s shoulder at Japan, which calls the shots at ADB.

  » Read more
  • May 22, 2009 2:07 PM

• Bruce Gilley: Look to Brasilia, Not Beijing

  

  From the Wall Street Journal:

  Threats to the global liberal order are usually identified with illiberal states. That’s why China, with its repressive domestic regime and its see-no-evil (unless related to the United States) foreign policy attracts so much attention these days.

  But a more compelling challenge to the current world order may be emerging from an unlikely trio of countries that boast both impeccable democratic credentials and serious global throw weight. They are India, Brazil and South Africa and their little-noticed experiment in foreign policy coordination since 2003 to promote subtle but potentially far-reaching changes to the international system has the potential to leave fears of a rising China in the dustbin of history.

  The quasi-alliance of these three powers has serious implications for the international system, and its major underwriter, the U.S., depending on how the challenge is handled. But an equally important, and quite unintended implication, is the sabotage of China’s great power ambitions. By robbing China of its claims to represent developing countries, this new cooperative trio could sideline China from the major debates in international affairs. That may be good news for domestic reform in China, which has long been stunted by the country’s great power ambitions.

  » Read more
  • April 7, 2009 8:19 PM

• Sandeep Dikshit: Sino-Indian border tranquil: Menon

  

  From Hindu.com:

  The Sino-Indian border is tranquil and both sides are maintaining the status quo, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said here on Thursday. Pointing out that both sides had their own perceptions about the boundary, Mr. Menon said each side treated the other’s crossing over as an incursion. But the important thing was whether there had been a change in the pattern of incursions and whether it was taking place in new places. The answer to both was in the negative, he said, while taking questions at the release of the book “India-China relations – The border issue and beyond” co-authored by Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh.

  “Both sides maintain the status quo. We don’t see changes in the pattern by either side,” Mr. Menon added.

  While there was a border issue there was no border dispute with China unlike with Pakistan. The last casualty that took place was in October 1975 and even that was an accident.

  » Read more
  • March 28, 2009 4:10 PM

• Pakistan and China: A Fraying Friendship?

  

  From Times Magazine:

  There is an old Chinese proverb that says to attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend. On Friday, an old friend is due to come calling in China. Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari will make his second visit to China in four months for meetings with senior political and business leaders. A key ally in the U.S.-led “War on Terror,” Pakistan — desperate for money and in need of a good friend — has recently found itself beckoning China for rescue. But is China willing to invest its pennies in Pakistan, much less play superhero for an old but now problematic ally?

  Once an “all-weather friend,” China stood with Pakistan during its old confrontations with India. Ties between the two countries date back to 1950 after Pakistan joined a small handful of nations in recognizing the communist People’s Republic of China. In 1962, war broke out between China and India over the disputed Himalayan border region, further aligning China and Pakistan in the name of a common enmity toward India. Since then, Beijing has often offered its support to Islamabad in the way of economic assistance, but also with no-strings-attached military aid and support to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

  » Read more
  • February 19, 2009 11:16 PM

• China to Challenge India’s Toy Ban at the WTO

  

  China may take action against India’s decision to temporarily ban Chinese toy imports. The Times of India reports:

  China plans to move the World Trade Organisation challenging India’s decision to ban Chinese toy imports. It feels that the ban amounts to violating WTO laws, which is something the world body must investigate.

  This is apparently a desperate move on the part of Chinese rulers engaged in saving the toy industry, which has already retrenched thousands of workers because of loss in export market. More than 1,000 toy manufacturers have closed down in recent months.

  New Delhi announced a six-month ban on imports of toys from China on January 23. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade from India, which imposed the ban, did not cite any reasons to support it. But Indian industry sources claimed it was meant to protect local manufacturers from cheap Chinese imports. Chinese toys make up nearly half of the total toys retained in India, sources claimed.

  See also the Reuters article, “China Mulling WTO Case Over India Toy Ban,” for more on the story.

  » Read more
  • February 4, 2009 8:53 PM

• Brazil, Russia Want Summit with India, China

  

  On Wednesday, the presidents of Brazil and Russia agreed on a 2009 conference that will be held in Russia and will involve Russia, Brazil, India, and China. It is unknown whether or not China and India have agreed to participate. From the Associated Press:

  [Brazilian] President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil, Russia, India and China “represent a powerful force,” signing a statement on the summit with his visiting Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

  China has become more involved in Latin America, as seen in this article from CDT, and has recently been improving ties with Russia, as seen in this article from CDT.

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 1:39 PM

• APEC Economist: India and China Key

  

  The Associated Press is reiterating China and India’s role in the global economic downturn, citing a top Pacific Rim trade economist and the International Monetary Fund in the positive impact of China and India’s growth. The IMF claims that developing nations, including China and India, will account for “the world’s entire projected 2.2 percent overall growth next year.”

  The IMF estimates that the economy from rich nations will grow by a mere 0.1 percent while the developing world is expected to grow almost five percent. China and India have grown at near double digit rates respectively, and the two countries hold 40 percent of the world’s population. Although the growth rates in both countries are expected to slow, “the production drop [will] be far softer than [in] rich countries” because China and India have the world’s largest cash reserves.

  China and India are members of APEC, and at last week’s G-20 summit in Washington DC both expressed a demand for “greater say in world economic and political forums.” The summit saw G-20 presidents agree to “take whatever action necessary to stabilize the financial system.”

  » Read more
  • November 18, 2008 8:50 PM

• Murdoch: China, India Will Reshape the World

  

  In his native country Australia, media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently delivered a speech about the future of India and China and their importance in remaking the global order. From AP:

  He said China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being “incarcerated by communism or caste.” The rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness.

  “The world has never seen this kind of advance before,” Murdoch said. “These are people who have known deprivation. These are people who are intent on developing their skills, improving their lives and showing the world what they can do.”

  Murdoch, whose New York-based conglomerate includes Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, Dow Jones & Co. as well as newspaper stables in Australia and Britain and the online networking site MySpace, described the global financial crisis as one of many challenges facing Australia.He said China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being “incarcerated by communism or caste.” The rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness.

  Read more of CDT’s coverage of Murdoch.

  » Read more
  • November 2, 2008 9:59 PM

• Nuclear India Must End Its China-bashing

  

  Joe Leahy writes in the Financial Times:

  India’s success last week at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna unleashed a wave of nationalist chest-beating greater even than a few weeks earlier when Abhinav Bindra, a shooter, became the nation’s first individual to win an Olympic gold medal.

  The nation’s cable news channels dropped their usual fare of gory crime stories and political corruption scandals to provide blanket coverage of the intricate negotiations with the NSG, which eventually agreed to lift a global ban on nuclear trade with India, ending the country’s decades of nuclear pariah status.

  But the media celebrations had an ugly side – China-bashing. Perceptions that Beijing had tried to block the deal from behind the scenes sparked outrage among commentators, who suspected China was championing the interests of its ally and India’s nuclear-armed rival, Pakistan.

  “It is in times of adversity that one learns who one’s friends are,” the Indian Express wrote in a piece lambasting China. The main business daily, The Economic Times, went further. “Slimy dragon wants deal for mother of proliferators,” it said, referring to perceptions that China might call for an NSG waiver for Pakistan as well.

  Rather than crowing about getting one up on the Chinese “dragon” and Islamabad, this should be a time of introspection for India. When the celebrations had died down, Mr Bindra’s medal prompted soul-searching on why the world’s second most populous nation had only just won its first individual Olympic gold.

  So, too, the nuclear deal should set Indians thinking about why their government has taken this long to tackle energy security, probably the country’s most critical long-term strategic challenge.

  » Read more
  • September 11, 2008 7:41 AM

• China, India Vie for Russian Oil

  

  From Wall Street Journal:

  China and India are facing off yet again in the race to secure energy resources to fuel their economic growth, this time in Russia’s Siberian oil fields.

  China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, has joined the bidding for London-listed Imperial Energy Corp., which primarily produces oil in Russia, a person familiar with the situation said Monday. India’s state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. has already offered about $2.5 billion for Imperial Energy, according to another person with knowledge of that offer.

  Zhang Zheng, deputy director of Sinopec’s foreign affairs bureau, said he knew nothing about his company’s offer for Imperial Energy and hadn’t heard of the British company. Officials at ONGC weren’t available for comment.

  » Read more
  • August 4, 2008 6:06 PM

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