In October 2013, an Indian intellectual delivered a historic speech in Beijing. He was addressing the intellectual cradle for the upper echelons of the government of China, a country that had been dubbed a rival, even adversary, to his very own.
He opened with these magnanimous lines, “I am conscious of the unique place that this School holds in the governance system of contemporary China and its contribution to the remarkable transformation of Chinese society.”
An economist by training and a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge, he had begun his career as an earnest international diplomat, as well as a nationally celebrated advisor to various regional governments in India. As a policy veteran enlisted by seasoned politicians to advance economic planning and restructuring in the country, he would eventually go onto become the first Sikh, and the fourth longest-serving (thus far) Prime Minister in Indian history.
Dr. Manmohan Singh was magnificent in his humility, imposing in his intellectual depth, and yet perhaps the most unlikely leader of the then-second most populous nation in the world. He died on December 26th, 2024, at the age of 92.
Much has been written on Singh’s domestic legacy, his academic track record, and the contrasts between him and his successor, the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yet what is equally worthy of note, is his contributions towards the Sino-Indian relationship. Indeed, the importance of this dyad was most aptly encapsulated by Singh’s declaration, on one of his last trips to China as Prime Minister, “When India and China shake hands, the world notices”.
As the two largest countries in population in the world, India and China each ha
Throughout his premiership, Singh exhibited substantively pragmatic and largely pro-peace inclinations in his engagements with China. He was a fervent believer in installing guardrails and setting lower bounds to the bilateral dynamic, such that even the most acrimonious of tensions would not spill over into kinetic warfare and direct confrontations.
Heralding and heeding the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (the “Panchsheel” in Hindi) devised in the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement, Singh advocated military-to-military talks, formalised through the China-India Defence Dialogue and ensuing anti-terrorism joint training between the two armies. As for broader territorial and border disputes, Singh called for “peaceful negotiations” in search of a “fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable solution”, in a joint statement issued alongside Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
In this light, the 2013 Depsang standoff between the Indian Northern Command and the Chinese Lanzhou Military Region proved to be a particularly demonstrative case study – for both supporters and critics of Singh’s approach.
On April 15th, 2013, a Chinese platoon established a foothold in a disputed region on the Sino-Indian border. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police responded by setting up a parallel encampment, demanding that the Chinese withdrew from the region immediately.
Dispatching Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to Beijing, Singh stared down vociferous criticism at home, and eventually agreed to a number of Chinese demands to demolish quasi-military infrastructure (including bunkers, observation and listening posts, and others). The conflict was resolved with no casualty.
Later that year, Singh signed a border defense co-operation agreement with newly minted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang – cementing a tentative modus vivendi that would remain unperturbed for the remainder of Singh’s term.
Predictably, the Prime Minister found himself battered by critics at home. Trenchant opposition politicians from the BJP panned him for his alleged capitulation, concessions, and strategic indecisiveness. Modi lambasted Singh for his being “weak when we needed to be strong”. A former diplomat declared, “No government can be weaker on China than the present one.”
In the eyes of many who are fundamentally skeptical of Chinese intentions and presence in the region, Singh’s fixation over securing peace and stability came across as deeply insecure, defensive, and unduly deferential. Stability, in their eyes, would only be preserved through a show of force and strength by Delhi, which Singh had evidently eschewed in favour of more subtle, taciturn diplomatic negotiations.
Irrespective of their validity or fairness, such perceptions would go onto enabling the hard-lined pivot of Singh’s successor, merely months into the premiership. National Security hawks rebuked Modi’s attempt to court Chinese President Xi Jinping – dubbing Modi’s welcome to Xi on an official visit as “particularly disturbing”. Mirroring developments in the US over the past decade, to take a more truculent stance on China has become a valuable ploy for amassing greater political capital on the domestic level.
Yet Singh would also be remembered for his high-economic-growth tenure, in which the dividends of his economic policies had as much to do with efficiency-bolstering liberalisation, as with his embracing his northern neighbour in trade and investment, albeit with clear reservations and certain caveats.
As Prime Minister, he received one of the largest delegations of Chinese business leaders ever to visit India in December 2010. During a business conference held for the occasion, the two countries signed over 50 deals in power, telecommunications, food products, and beyond, comprising $16 billion. Premier Wen and Singh also agreed upon a new $100 billion USD bilateral trade target by 2015, $40 billion USD more than the 2010 volume.
An emphasis upon opening up the country to foreign investors – including those from China – and rendering its workforce more equipped to engage and constructively add value to its regional neighbours, would come to define Singh’s human capital policy. Whilst subtle and structural reforms in education, welfare and labour laws, and regulatory structures might not have been the most politically visible or appealing, the Indian statesman left his office in a considerably more affluent, confident, and dynamic India.
Chinese state media have adopted a fairly congenial tone over Singh’s passing – foreign policy spokesperson Mao Ning conveyed “sincere sympathies to the Indian government and people”, over the death of a “veteran statesman and renowned economist […] who contributed significantly to the development of China-India relations”.
With Beijing and New Delhi both keen on embracing the “winds of pragmatic change” – as I noted in a commentary last year – we can only hope that the wisdom of Manmohan Singh can continue to inspire the next generation of bridge-builders and communicators across the Himalayas. The world certainly stands to benefit from it.
