How India quietly reached out to China's new rulers
The MEA identified these men as potential front-runners, possibly emerging as China’s next leaders.
When the new members of China's elite Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) walked out to meet the world's press on October 25, India's mandarins in South Block may have allowed themselves a smile.
For much of the world, some of the PBSC's five new members - who will join President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, continuing for their second term - may have been unfamiliar faces. But not for India. In a first, all seven members of the all-powerful PBSC have more than a little familiarity with India.
Four of the five had been invited by the ministry of external affairs to India, as part of an outreach programme aimed at building links with fast-rising Chinese leaders at the provincial level. The MEA identified them as potential front-runners, possibly emerging as China's next leaders, as they extended invites through the CPC's international department. Their bets were on the spot.
Li Zhanshu, ranked third behind the President and Premier, is Xi's right-hand and will now lead the Chinese Parliament. He was invited to India when he was a leader in northeastern Heilongjiang province between 2008 and 2010.
Fourth-ranked Wang Yang visited India when he was serving as the party boss of Guangdong province, which accounts for more trade with India than any other province. Wang was posted there between 2007 and 2010 and was known as an economic reformer.
Sixth-ranked Zhao Leji, a close Xi aide who will now head the powerful Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), visited India in 2005, when he was the party boss of northwestern Qinghai province and a little known figure outside of China.
Perhaps the leader with the biggest India connect is seventh-ranked Han Zheng, the Shanghai party chief who will take over the post of executive vice premier, a top post in charge of the economy. Han led a 25-member delegation to promote trade with India last year and he has also maintained regular contact with Indian businessmen in Shanghai from the time he was mayor.
Fifth-ranked Wang Huning is an exception in never having served as a party chief, being the CPC's leading ideologue and having a long-time presence in the Policy Research Office. But, he has been a regular visitor, accompanying both former President Hu Jintao and President Xi on their state visits.
While President Xi and Premier Li both visited India during their first terms, even their engagement predates their 2012 appointments. Xi visited when he was a provincial party leader, while Li visited India in 1986 as a 31-year-old on a Communist Youth League exchange, a trip he recalled fondly in 2013 before he made India his first overseas visit as PM.
But not all invited CPC officials made it to the top. A prominent past visitor who cultivated close ties with India, former Chongqing boss Bo Xilai, who wanted to establish close links between Bengaluru and Dalian, was warmly hosted. But he lost out to his rival Xi and was ultimately purged, now languishing in prison. Familiarity to India in itself does not, of course, imply they might chart a favourable policy.
Xi's first term, if anything, has suggested a more muscular and confident diplomacy. But at the very least, India's diplomats can't be faulted for keeping their eye on the ball in charting the rise of China's next leaders.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)