When China’s neighbours didn’t embrace its notorious “made-in-China map”, Xi Jinping cancelled several upcoming summit appearances.
In a fit of imperial pique, China’s Xi Jinping has slammed the door on the Indo-Pacific region. Byin Indonesia and India, Xi shows he “has become deaf strategically and diplomatically in thinking that none of the other countries’ concerns matter,” says leading Indian strategic analyst C. Raja Mohan of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the University of Singapore.
India, traditionally non-aligned, is a swing state in the confrontation between the US and China. It has been swinging towards the US ever since 2020 whenXi used the occasion of the BRICS summit to woo his Indian counterpart: “He made an effort to fix the breach with India,” Mohan tells me. Xi proposed that the two neighbours set aside their border dispute and “let’s go back to normal,” as Mohan puts it.
The claims aren’t new. But two factors made it especially inflammatory. First, Beijing called it the new “standard map”, meaning that it’s final and non-negotiable. The other reason the map is so inflammatory is its timing, immediately before the big annual summits in Jakarta and Delhi, where Xi would be meeting face-to-face with the offended nations’ leaders.
The renowned sinologist Geremie Barme explains the sentiment behind this decision as “‘I’m not going to turn up, that’ll show ya!’”
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