A road too long

India was the sole standout among the eight Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by declining to endorse China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project. It is not an easy option to back-out from a joint declaration where the other seven countries are agreeable. In fact, the recent spurt in Sino-India interactions might have suggested a more flexible stand, but India has sought to uphold its strategic interest by not endorsing OBOR. To do so would have amounted to diluting the stand on Indian sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir since the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a major component of the OBOR, runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. 

India's maiden outing at the summit of the eight-nation bloc proved productive. In the run-up to the summit, China sought to partially address the alarming and unsustainable $ 50 billion trade imbalance with India by agreeing to allow the import of non-basmati rice and pharmaceutical goods, India's longstanding demands that had cut no ice with Beijing for a decade. China's move to share hydrological data of the Brahmaputra with India is another confidence-building measure, as well as a responsible action by an upper riparian state. India, too, has reciprocated, but it is obvious from PM Modi's stand on OBOR that strategic trust still escapes the two sides.

China's support for the Indian seat in the Nuclear Suppliers Group is still to come, as is its withdrawal of support to Hafiz Saeed. OBOR is a tremendous gamble, and it could transform regional trade. Howits commercial viability demands the all-out support of economically vibrant countries like India. Other Chinese overseas infrastructural ventures have turned out to be expensive lemons, as in the case of Sri Lanka's Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. However, strategic interest is always paramount in Beijing’s mind. India sticking to its guns in spite of general activity and bonhomie shows that New Delhi, too, is rightly preserving its options and strategic interests.