Modi & Xi Won't Get Carried Away By Short-Term Concerns in Doklam

Tilak Jha, thequint.com

Image from article, with caption: "Euphoria around India’s soft power seems to have vanished with recent Doklam faceoff."

Excerpt:

National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval’s China trip amid the standoff at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction has given enough indication that India might well retain the upper hand in Doklam [JB - see], at least in the short run. But unlike China, which has a history of giving away the soft stakes and soft signals while retaining the hard advantages, India has tended to be de facto the other way around – holding on to the soft underbelly but compromising on the hard stakes. ...

[T]he real question is whether we can play hardball with the Chinese for long without letting it spill over into our public diplomacy of treating our Chinese friends with the dignity they deserve ...