thecatapult.in

When the External Affairs minister Padmashri Shri Pranab Mukherjee landed in Beijing for his scheduled meeting with the Chinese leadership. He found that neither Hu or grandpa Wen could spare any time to meet him. But they instead fixed up a meeting with the newly appointed Vice President Xi Jinping who is currently assigned for dealing with crank cases.

That has left the Indian side including both the MEA and MEdiA quite confused and they are trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.The current leadership shows no inclination to meet him while at the same they arrange a meeting with the supposed future leadership.

Well let me help them out of their stupor. In one short sentence- It is a BAD thing and it is a straightforward diplomatic slap in the face.

Xi Jinping might be the chosen successor of Hu Jintao slated to succeed him in 2012. but the CCP history is littered with the corpses of such “chosen ones”. from President Lin Biao to Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang there are many who one day were on the path to superstardom only to find themselves in a dark dungeon the next day holding their intenstines in their hands and begging for mercy from the red guards just because of one small real or perceived misstep.

Xi knows this very well. So all that Pranab can expect from this encounter is more homilies, platitudes, joint declarations ad hominem but nothing of substance.

And one more thing that has missed the notice of most Padmashri Shri Pranab should have chosen a better day to make his trip to Beijing than preferring to go on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in an Olympic year when the whole world is trying to use the Olympics as a leverage to pressure Beijing to improve its record on human rights. It is said that diplomacy is a lot about symbolism. The posturing matters just as much as the substance. It is unlikely that the either Pranabda or the babus of the MEA were unaware of the significance of the day.

Now the timing is definitely not an issue between India and China. Most certainly the Chinese would have been just as boorish as they have been today even if the Indian foreign minister had landed on June 6th, 7th or 8th or whenever. it wouldn’t make a dime of a difference.

But where it will come to matter is in the court of International opinion which the Indian diplomats are trying to woo for myriad reasons and especially for their coveted permanent security council seat. For a country that is drumbeating its credentials as the largest democracy in the world to gain a seat at that supposed high table. It matters what message each of its words and actions sends to the rest of the world. This unfortunately has only sent the message that India really doesn’t have any courage of conviction to act on its own professed principles and again when they see the craven attitude of Mukherjee and his ministry in the light of Chinese boorishness it doesn’t raise their confidence that India has the ability to even stand up for its own self. No wonder governments in most world capitals do not take the Indian diplomats seriously.