The Indian Finance Ministry’s Economic Survey 2023-24, which came out in July, suggested an implied economic policy change toward China: “In sum, to boost Indian manufacturing and plug India into the global supply chain, it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain. Whether we do so by relying solely on imports or partially through Chinese investments is a choice that India has to make.”
Earlier India’s Finance Ministry Survey had pointed out: “As the U.S. and Europe shift their immediate sourcing away from China, it is more effective to have Chinese companies invest in India and then export the products to these markets rather than importing from China, adding minimal value, and then re-exporting them.”
This proposal, similar to what Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia are doing, comes through Indian access to Chinese productive capital as a possible improvement in China-India relations, their trade balance, and their economies. It received a kind of denial from India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. He told reporters in Delhi on July 31 that the Survey was not a binding government document and that, “There is no rethinking at present to support Chinese investments in the country.”
Whatever the balance of forces between the Finance Ministry’s Survey and the Commerce Minister’s comment, there has been a sequence of statements looking toward cooperation—much to the dismay of British geopolitical circles and their efforts to drive a wedge between the two nations.
