How China is playing a twin-track game with India
China’s twin road strategy in India emerges as open diplomatic participation while implementing secret trade pressures. China’s latest actions reflect how it sees the trade relationship with India as a strategic leverage tool.
China’s strategic leverage through export denials
China’s control over lock supply chains is well established. As the world’s rare soil elements, fertilizer inputs and the leading manufacturer of industrial machines, it has a dominant position in many high -valuable sectors. Beijing, intentionally delaying or stopping the exports of these items to India, Beijing proposes this judge in fine but clearly compelling ways.
Case of rare earth magnets is particularly explanatory. These components, rejecting their exports to Indian companies, developed electronic, electrical vehicles, wind turbines and so on. It is necessary for China’s high -tech ambitions in high -tech production, ‘Make Make’ in India ‘and the production -related incentives (PLI) slows down the basic pillar of the initiatives. Similarly, special fertilizers in Chinese ports affect the Indian agricultural sector at a time when global food safety concerns remain high. The blockade of tunnel boring machines, which are critical for the flagship infrastructure project financed by Japan, brings both economic delays and diplomatic strangeness.
All these actions share a common topic. They allow China to remind India to the role of the central role in global industrial ecosystems and the consequences of falling in favor.
Domestic priorities or geopolitical game?
China, especially around the fertilizers, offered technical reasons for some of these export delays. Chinese customs officials mentioned the audits within the scope of the guise of Entrance – EXIT examination and quarantine (CIQ) protocols to protect and control inflation in seemingly internal agricultural needs. The deliberate and consistent nature of these export denials indicates a more calculated geopolitical strategy when it aims at sensitive sectors and projects. The Chinese state uses bureaucratic tools to formally implement pressure without proclaiming a trade embargo. People with information on the subject said that China did not control the posts made for India using various procedures to prevent export from an open prohibition. The pattern shows that it is less about local needs and strategic messaging.
“China has been restricting special fertilizer suppliers to India for the last four to five years, but this time, don’t stop.”
Another important driving force behind China’s trade barriers may be retaliation to India’s post -Galwan restrictions on Chinese economic participation. Since the deadly 2020 border conflict in Ladakh, India has taken a few steps to limit its influence on China’s economy. India requires government approval for investment by limited countries, especially targeting its northern neighbor.
The investment from China now requires state approval under the updated DYM norms (Press Note 3). More than 200 Chinese mobile applications, including Tiktok, have been banned for national security reasons. The direct flights between India and China remained limited. From China’s point of view, these restrictions prevent India from accessing the large consumer market and investment field. For this reason, export denials serve as a reaction to the taste, which is an attempt to point to discontent in India’s protective economic stance. By rejecting key materials, China reminds India the cost of economic decomposition.
What are the options of India?
China’s export rejection strategy is an example of a textbook of Economic Statecraft. It reflects not only China’s trust in the industrial leverage, but also the desire to use trade as a means of coercion. China’s export blockages may be an attempt to test India’s elasticity. By selectively disrupting the materials of elements such as precise magnets or specific fertilizer notes, China may be observing how fast India can return to alternatives.
India has already started to diversify. Russia passed China and emerged as the largest fertilizer supplier to India. For rare worlds, India deepes ties with Australia, USA and Japan. In Turkey, production -related incentive schemes are increasing to promote local production of critical components. Although China can ultimately diversify India, it may be calculating that short -term costs and disruptions will be deterrent. If Chinese exports remain unreliable and alternatives come more expensive or slower, India may have to re -calibrate the trade stance against China by providing critical imports from more reliable suppliers and increasing local capacity.
Diplomacy on the surface, pressure below
Ironically, both countries are dealing with diplomatic decisions, but these compelling trade tactics emerge. NSA Ajit Doval’s current presence in Beijing and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh in China underlines a common interest in stable bonds, especially along the actual control line.
However, export denials reveal a different strategy layer. Beijing seems to test the sincerity and power of India’s social assistance by using trade friction as a way to investigate India. Probably China, just as India seeks a permanent solution to border problems, wants to make upright concessions from India to normalize the ties. Under the open diplomacy, China imposes confidential pressures through trade to obtain benefits from India. But India plays hardball. Rajnath Singh told Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Don Jun to protect this positive momentum and to avoid adding new complexities to the bilateral relationship.
As India and China try to reach a new understanding by leaving many years of tension in vineyards due to border conflicts, China’s latest export denial pressure can be a record. The first group of Holy Kailash-Manasarovar Yatra reached Lake Manasarovar with a sign that shows that after a five-year break, the re-start of the journey and that both countries were willing to correct relationships.
