The mood in India simmers with retaliation following the death of at least 20 Indian soldiers in clashes with their Chinese counterparts on the decades-long unsettled border between the two countries. And there is bewilderment too at the muted reaction from India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
When Modi first came to power, he promised a ‘muscular’ foreign policy. Yet when it matters most, this seems to be missing in action. On Friday, Modi said that ‘neither is anyone inside our territory, nor is any of our post captured’. This appeared to contradict previous and subsequent statements by his own defence and external affairs ministries and the Indian army. So what’s really going on?
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The answer lies in Modi’s tense relationship with Xi Jinping, who is as antagonistic a leader as communist China’s founding father, Mao Zedong.
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