With a reset underway in the India-China equation in light of a hawkish trade policy by the US, a top Chinese expert in geopolitics has described Donald Trump's imposition of high tariffs on India and others as “the biggest kid in the classroom going around and stealing people's lunch money”.
He also dismissed Trump's claims of having forced India and Pakistan into a ceasefire using trade as leverage. “Trump was not a key player in this. This was something beyond him. And if you start looking at all the 'wars that he's ended', they're still fighting,” Einar Tangen, Senior Fellow at the thinktank Taihe Institute in Beijing, said to NDTV in an online interaction.
He was speaking in light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with China's Xi Jinping in Tianjin — the warmest sign so far of a thaw in bilateral relations after the border clashes in Galwan in 2020 led to a chill. The tariffs imposed by Trump have apparently brought the two Asian giant together again.
In Trump's case, there's “lots of rhetoric” but the reality is different, said Einar Tangen. On tariffs, he was more pointed: “It is just pure bullying: The biggest kid in the classroom going around and stealing people's lunch money. It's disgusting."
{{/usCountry}}In Trump's case, there's “lots of rhetoric” but the reality is different, said Einar Tangen. On tariffs, he was more pointed: “It is just pure bullying: The biggest kid in the classroom going around and stealing people's lunch money. It's disgusting."
{{/usCountry}}He mocked Trump further by adding: “He says that ‘the US is not bullying the world’. When you send out 180 letters, including to penguins, saying that you're putting tariffs on them, this is not a diplomacy."
The “letters to penguins” reference here is to the when the remote Australian territory of Heard and McDonald Islands was put on the list of Trump’s sweeping tariff plan, even though the islands have no human population and are known actually for their penguin population.
On Modi-Xi talks and expectations
To questions on the India-China equation now, he told the TV channel, "In order to have a harvest, you have to plant seeds. I think those were planted back in October,” referring to the Modi-Xi meeting in Kazan, Russia, on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in 2024.
“Drawing down the number of troops on both sides of the borders would be very good on the security front. It'll take time to build trust," he said
But, on the economic side, he expects more progress: “It's transactional… And there are promising things already in progress — rare earths, tunnel boring machines, fertilisers, etc.”
He said India has more affordable labour while in China the wages are now relatively higher, which is where the two countries “are poised to work together”.
He contextualised the meeting also as “not a meeting solely about China and India”, but as “really about a whole bunch of nations who are now very, very concerned”.
He described the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the group's summit on August 31 — as countries that focus on coming together to maintain stability.
The SCO is now comprised of China, India, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was originally seen as a foil to US influence in Central Asia. India and Pakistan were added in 2017; Iran in 2023, and Belarus in 2024.
On Pakistan and terror: ‘Get to its root causes’
When pressed on India's ongoing demand that Pakistan be mentioned explicitly by the international community when condemning terrorism, he said: “Remember, terrorism is not something that exists just in India… It is a common danger.”
He added that from China's point of view, “they always wonder why India is concerned about terrorism only if it affects India”.
He mentioned the Pakistani province of Balochistan — “there have been many more people killed” — and said that's not been seen as as an international issue.
He suggested India and Pakistan must talk to “get to its root causes”.
“If there are state actors, expose them, have investigations, make sure that if you do not trust China to do it, have somebody else you do trust do it. Have Russia do it,” he added.
The Modi government has said China provided weapons to Pakistan in the recent clashes after retaliated to the terror attack in Pahalgam with Operation Sindoor. He did not expressly speak on that.