India rarely takes the initiative once, but it is by no means a good sign! If you want to force China to do it, it turns out that there are traces to follow for a long time?
India's Ministry of Steel and Trade is negotiating to increase imports of Chinese goods in recent days amid ongoing calls from major producers to raise tariffs, according to Russia's Sputnik news agency. The trend of India becoming a net importer of steel continued as of March this year, with imports of finished steel hitting a five-year high in April and May, according to data, which allowed China to remain the largest steel exporter in Asia's third-largest economy, India. As a result, some Indian steel mills are strongly concerned about the sharp rise in imports and have repeatedly called on the government to intervene and raise import duties. However, India's steel ministry rejected these calls, citing strong local demand, and instead took the initiative to negotiate an increase in China's steel imports.
You know, India has always boasted that it has the same international status as China, and this mentality has led them to have a delusional confidence that what China can do, India can do the same. Therefore, it is extremely rare to take the initiative to seek dialogue with China, and still on the weaker side. But this does not seem to me to be a good sign, because India seems to be overtures on the surface, but if you look closely, it is not difficult to see that it is just a helpless move. To put it simply, there is an inherent economic logic to the trade relationship between China and India. At present, India is a developing country, and due to the competitiveness of Chinese products, the overall demand for Chinese products in the Indian market is very large. This is the case with the surge in steel imports mentioned above, and India's political tensions with China do not affect their dependence on China. We can see that in recent years, the trade volume between China and India has risen instead of falling, and India's imports from China have also continued to grow, which shows the strength of the Sino-Indian economy.
However, it should be noted that this only shows that India cannot do without Chinese goods, but it does not prevent the Modi government from continuing to stand on the opposite side of China. Just a few days ago, India's Ministry of External Affairs responded to tensions in the South China Sea by stating that India opposes unilateral actions that attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion and believes that there should be no destabilizing incidents or actions in the region. In this regard, some analysts pointed out that India took a neutral attitude on the South China Sea dispute in the early days, and its contacts with Southeast Asian countries were mainly economic and trade, but in view of India's border dispute with China, this position has changed in recent years and gradually expanded to the field of security and strategic cooperation.
Originally, India was not a party to the South China Sea issue, so it had no right to point fingers at all, but India wanted to follow the example of the United States, and when Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar visited Manila in March this year, he stressed India's support for the Philippines in defending its national sovereignty. India also sent an anti-submarine frigate to Manila late last year for a goodwill visit, followed by joint maritime exercises with the Philippine Navy in the South China Sea. If we move the timeline a little further, we can see that the Philippines purchased three BrahMos supersonic cruise missile systems from India in January 2022 and received the first system in April this year.
At this point, it is not difficult for us to see that India's ambition to provoke China has long been exposed, and its attempt to force China to do so has long been traced. Therefore, in the face of India's initiative, we have a clear concept: business is business, and relationship is relationship, and if India wants to have both and want, then China will let it know what it means to be "a bamboo basket for nothing".