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Friday, October 11, 2019

King Narendra Modiji and Chinest Xi Jinping meet at Mamallapuram


King Narasimhavarma Pallavan should be feeling very happy at the buzz in the port city of Mamallapuram created by him .. .. the town is awash with activity being the venue of the meeting of two tall leaders – Mr Narendra Modi and Mr Xi Jinping of China.

One may not be aware of the Uyghurs, a minority Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia but most are aware and are perhaps using Xioami (Redmi) phones, so popular in India. Xiaomi Corporation is a Chinese electronics company founded by Lei Jun in 2010 and headquartered in Beijing. Xiaomi makes and invests in smartphones, mobile apps, laptops, bags, trimmers, earphones, MI Television, Shoes, fitness bands, and many other products. Xiaomi released its first smartphone in August 2011 and rapidly gained market share in China to become the country's largest smartphone company in 2014.  The World is following the visit of the  leader of the world's most populated country and second largest economy (GDP), Xi Jinping who  holds a firm grasp on China's only political party.  It is an informal meet at Mahabalipuram, 50 kms off Chennai, Tamilnadu. 

          In March, China's  parliament amended its constitution, broadening Xi's power and scrapping term limits. After ascending to the presidency in 2012, Xi was quick to see the benefits of privatization-friendly reform.He is widely credited with the slogan Chinese Dream - a set of personal and national ideals for the advancement of Chinese society.
The man, President Xi Jinping,  has become China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.  Over the years, Overseas media reports and analysts have focused mostly on the extraordinary rise of Xi’s power, surmising it could somehow throw China into greater political and economic uncertainty.

The visit assumes greater significance as - China has close economic, diplomatic and military ties with Pakistan, making it one of the nation's closest allies in the region. Between 2008 and 2017, Islamabad purchased more than $6 billion of Chinese arms, according to think tank CSIS. China has also invested billions in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an integral part of Xi's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) trade and infrastructure mega-project.  Economic and strategic competition between China, a Communist-ruled one-party state, and India -- the world's largest democracy -- has also intensified in the past few years as Beijing started to expand its influence in India's traditional backyard, especially through Xi's ambitious BRI global trade plan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is arriving  in Chennai this afternoon for a two-day visit ahead of his second informal meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two world leaders meet on Saturday morning for a one-on-one meeting nearly a year after they met in China's Wuhan in April.Xi Jinping's visit comes two days after his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, when they discussed Kashmir and China cited the UN charter.Sources said terrorism, including training, financing and any other support to terror groups, will be one of the key issues to be discussed. Others will be trade, defence and border issues. Sources say both sides are also looking at possible confidence-building measures for the India-China border, which may be announced later.

China and India desperately want to improve their trade relationship. But it seems whenever the countries' leaders meet, the Himalayas get in the way.When Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2018, it came after a tense, months-long military standoff over Doklam, a region in the "trijunction" between India, China and Bhutan, high in the Himalayas. That standoff at times appeared poised to spill over to outright conflict, a repeat of the brief border war the two countries fought in 1962.As Xi lands in the coastal city of Chennai Friday for a two-day visit to India, it's the Kashmir Valley at the northwestern tip of the mountain range that's poised to spoil efforts to improve Sino-Indian ties.  This time, however,  Beijing isn't directly involved in the conflict.

Beijing is a longtime ally of Islamabad, and New Delhi is keen to keep China out of the dispute. According to the Hindustan Times, Indian officials said the recent change in status for Jammu and Kashmir "won't be up for discussion" when Xi and Modi meet this week, with talks expected to focus on trade issues.  A couple days ago, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan threw a spanner into the works with a visit to Beijing, where he met with Xi in an apparent attempt to shore up support ahead of the Modi summit.

Xi Jinping, born 1953, is the  General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC),  President of the People's Republic of China (PRC), and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). Xi has been Paramount Leader, the highest ranking officer in China, since 2012 and he officially received the title of "core leader" from the CPC in 2016. As general secretary, Xi holds an ex-officio seat on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, China's top decision-making body.  Xi is the first general secretary born after the Second World War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Xi was governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002.

Since assuming power, Xi has introduced far-ranging measures to enforce party discipline and to ensure internal unity. His signature anti-corruption campaign has led to the downfall of prominent incumbent and retired Communist Party officials, including members of the Politburo Standing Committee.He has tightened restrictions over civil society and ideological discourse, advocating Internet censorship in China as the concept of "internet sovereignty". His tenure has also seen a significant increase of censorship and mass surveillance, significant deterioration in human rights, the return to a cult of personality and the removal of term limits for the President in 2018. Xi has, according to the Human Rights Watch, started a "broad and sustained offensive on human rights" since he became leader in 2012. The HRW also said that repression in China is "at its worst level since the Tiananmen Square massacre."

In 2017, the local government of the Jiangxi province told Christians to replace their pictures of Jesus with Xi Jinping.  The Associated Press reported in 2018 that "Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982", which has involved "destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith". As of 2019, China is holding one million ethnic Uyghurs in internment camps in Xinjiang. 

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
11th Oct 2019.

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