The Elephant’s slow but steady march has been noted by the dragon. A realistic, noneuphoric appraisal of Manmohan Singh’s visit to China suggests that Beijing is more amenable to treating New Delhi on an equal footing than ever before. The political benchmark for judging Sino-Indian relations has been a visit-by-visit assessment ever since Rajiv Gandhi’s ground-breaking trip to China in 1988. Singh’s visit marks a major step-up in endeavour: India and China are now gearing up to act in bilateral concert on a global scale. Asked why India-China ties were improving, the Prime Minister said at the end of his three-day visit that the world respected the strong, not the weak. ‘If India is strong economically, politically, socially, [the] world will respect us more… and take note of our concerns,” Singh stressed. In essence, the PM said the Chinese had recognised India’s strengths as a nation and were now ready to do business with us on a range of issues from trade talks to climate change. Sinophobia afflicts a large number of strategic thinkers in India, a fear generated by the crushing defeat that the Indian morale suffered ill 1962. Many of our China pundits lived through that war and believe that Beijing is not to be trusted. New India has now the right to depart from the old phobia and engage China not with fear or suspicion, but through the prism of equality of exchange. Speaking in Delhi in November 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao tried to put India in its place when he said New Delhi was Beijing’s largest trade partner in South Asia. It was interpreted as gently pointing to India’s mere ‘South Asian’ status. But the real sub-text of Sino-Indian ties – the fantastic increase in bilateral trade – has changed the locational setting of India for the Chinese. Addressing a business meeting with the PM during his visit to Beijing, Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Langyu pointed out that India was China’s tenth largest trading partner globally. The ‘South Asian’ context, this time, was significantly absent.Even before he left for China, Singh also sent out a loud and clear message to the party leadership in Beijing: India was not playing any ‘contain China’ game and the quadripartite dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India was as good as dead. A close look at the vision document reveals indirect Chinese concerns about the quadripartite dialogue.’The two [...]
Archive for January 22nd, 2008
Posted in 
BEARS HUNTING BULLS
January 22nd, 2008 
Tejinder SOUTH-BOUND- What happened in just 7 days? A quick recap: Investors lose over $300 bn in six days. The total m-cap stood at Rs 59, 53,525.87 crore at the end of Monday’s trading against Rs 71, 38,810 crore before bourses began business last week on Jan 14. Investors lost a whopping Rs 6, 63,975 crore in just one trading session from market cap of Rs 66,17,501.33 crore on Friday last week. Wire money online to India with Xoom.com for as low as $4.99. Investors had lost over Rs 5, 21,310 crore in the five trading sessions last week. The 30 stock account for over Rs 2,19,717.74 crore in the total loss with their combined market cap falling to Rs 24,63,139 crore on Monday. Reliance Industries has lost over Rs 37,110.72 crore, taking its market value to Rs 3,69,837.28 crore from Rs 4,06,948 crore on Friday. Liquidity Concerns loom large as foreign fund flows reverse and with large chunks of rupee funds locked up in the Reliance Power issue (Rs 1, 15,000 crore subscription money). Bears went bull hunting on Dalal Street on Monday, January 21, 2008. As the global economy reacted to a potential US recession and foreign funds sold heavily, the Sensex recorded its biggest ever single-day drop of 1,408.35 points, and investors lost notional wealth worth Rs 6,63,975 crore. Trading halted on the Bombay Stock Exchange for a few minutes as a circuit limit of 10 per cent got wrongly activated instead of the 15 per cent limit specified by regulators. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh moved to cool the mood at the end of a heart-wrenching day. “Orderly growth of the capital market is a priority concern… Considering that fundamentals of our economy are elementarily strong, I am confident market will grow in an orderly manner. I would like to assure the Indian public that sustained orderly growth for capital markets is a priority concern,” he said. The Sensex lost 2,062 points intraday to hit a low of 16, 951, before recovering about one-third of what it lost to close at 17, 605.35, down 7.41 per cent. The National Stock Exchange Nifty lost 496.50 points or 8.70 per cent to close at 5208.80. Market capitalisation on the BSE was Rs 59, 53,525.87 crore at the end of Monday’s trading, a mind-numbing drop of Rs 6, 63,975 crore in just one trading session. Rs 5, 21,310 crore [...]
