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India and China are set to resume direct flight connections as soon as next month, people familiar with the negotiations told Bloomberg.
US President Donald Trump’s threat of a 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods is pushing Prime Minister Narendra Modi closer to BRICS nations, espcially China. This marks a significant shift in bilateral ties between India and China that saw their lowest point in 2020 following the Galwan Valley clash.
Amid the India-US tariff tensions, PM Narendra Modi’s latest move is to resume direct flights with China as soon as next month, people familiar with the negotiations, who asked for anonymity to discuss private matters, told news agency Bloomberg.
The deal could be formally announced when Modi is expected to head to China for the first time in seven years and meet President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation held in Tianjin from August 31, the report added.
India, China to resume direct flights
Airlines in India have been asked by the government to prepare flights to China at short notice.Passenger flights between India to China were suspended after the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing travelers from the two neighbouring countries to pass through hubs like through Hong Kong or Singapore.
India had suspended direct flights during the pandemic, which coincided with the Galwan Valley clash in east Ladakh that killed 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops.
What experts said
Henry Wang, president of the Center for China and Globalization think tank in Beijing, told the news agency that ties between India and China are in an “up cycle", and as leaders of the Global South, “they have to really speak to each other".“Trump’s tariff war on India has made India realise that they have to maintain some kind of strategic autonomy and strategic independence,” he added.
Washington DC has long courted New Delhi as a counterbalance to Beijing in geopolitics but with Donald Trump’s trade wars, China and India are finding common ground.
Xu Feihong, China’s ambassador to India, has offered Modi moral support over the tariffs.
“Give the bully an inch, he will take a mile,” Xu wrote last week on X over a quote from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi denouncing the use of tariffs “as a weapon to suppress other countries.”
Also Read | 'Donald Trump's tariffs could push India closer to…': Ex-US NSA John Bolton's 'enormous mistake' warning
Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned that Donald Trump’s tariff measures against India, intended to hurt Russia, could end up having the opposite effect by pushing New Delhi closer to Moscow and Beijing.
"Trump's tariffs against India are intended to hurt Russia but they could push India closer to Russia and to China to oppose these tariffs," John Bolton told CNN in an interview.
The former NSA further cautioned, “Trump’s leniency on the Chinese, and heavy-handed tariffs on India, jeopardise decades of American efforts to bring India away from Russia and China.”
Also Read |
Trump's 50% tariff on India
Modi’s economic calculus was fundamentally altered this month when Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent as a penalty for its purchases of Russian oil.Donald Trump's remarks that India’s economy was “dead” and its tariff barriers “obnoxious” further strained relations.
China shows thaw signs
China, also a prime target in Trump’s trade wars, has shown signs it’s ready for a thaw. This month, it eased curbs on urea shipments to India — the world’s largest importer of the fertilizer.Although initial volumes are small, the trade could expand, easing global shortages and prices. China relaxed the ban in June but had maintained restrictions on India until now.
