New Delhi: India’s trade deficit with China crossed $100 billion for the first time, with Indian imports also increasing to an all-time high despite bilateral relations taking a plunge since the Galwan clash along the disputed border area in 2020.Data released by the Chinese customs department on Friday showed that India-China trade for 2022 climbed to $135.98 billion – a rise of 8.4% over the $125 billion mark a year earlier. The data said that China’s exports to India climbed to $118.5 billion (a 21.7% increase year-on-year) while China’s imports from India dwindled to $17.48 billion from $28.1 billion – a year-on-year decline of 37.9%.Just in: China Customs data showed India’s total trade and imports from China reached record levels in 2022.Trade ⬆️ to $135.98 billion, from $125.6 billion in 2021India’s imports ⬆️to $118.5 billion, from $97.5 billionIndia’s exports ⬇️to $17.48 billion, from $28.1 billion— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) January 13, 2023India’s trade deficit with China stood at $101.02 billion, surging past the $100 billion mark for the first time. In 2021, the deficit was $69.38 billion.According to the news agency PTI, India-China trade in 2021 was $125.62 billion, an increase of 43.32% year on year and the first time that trade was greater than $100 billion. That year, India’s imports from China increased by 46.14% to reach $97.59 billion. India’s exports too had increased by 34.28% to reach $28.03 billion in 2021.While external affairs minister S. Jaishankar told parliament recently that India’s relations with China “cannot be normal” as long as Beijing tries to “unilaterally change” the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and builds up forces along the border, trade with the country has only been on the rise.While the major flashpoint between the two countries was the clash in eastern Ladakh in May 2020, another melee was reported in the Eastern sector of the LAC in Tawang in December 2022.According to a brief on trade posted on the Indian Embassy website in Beijing, “The rapid expansion of India-China bilateral trade since the beginning of this century has propelled China to emerge as India’s largest goods trading partner by 2008.”“Since the beginning of the last decade, bilateral trade between the two countries recorded exponential growth. From 2015 to 2021, India-China bilateral trade grew by 75.30%, an average yearly growth of 12.55%”, the note said.On the global trade front, China posted a surplus of $877.6 billion in 2022 despite “weakening US and European demand and anti-virus controls that temporarily shut down Shanghai and other industrial centres”, according to the news agency AP.As per the customs data, China’s overall exports in 2022 rose by 7% and imports rose by 1.1%. The exports increased to $3.95 trillion while imports increased to $2.7 trillion.“China’s foreign trade and exports showed strong resilience in the face of many difficulties and challenges,” said a customs agency spokesperson at a news conference, according to the news agency.China’s trade deficit with the US widened to $404.1 billion, an increase of 1.8% from the previous year. The country exported goods with $581.8 billion to the US (an increase of 1% over 2021) despite tariff hikes put in place by Donald Trump, while imports declined by 1% to $177.6 billion.According to AP, forecasters said that Chinese export growth will weaken further as the risk of recession in Western economies rises. “China’s exports are likely to contract until the middle of the year,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics.Are relations normal or not?In an article analysing the shift in the Modi government’s strategy towards China, strategic analyst Ali Ahmed wrote that the position has shifted from proactivism to docility. He wrote that though the foreign minister has repeatedly referred to enhanced ‘tensions’ precluding normalcy, trade relations have boomed. “[Jaishankar] has kept secret what better indicator of normalcy he has in mind,” Ahmed wrote.The analyst argues that the government’s aim seems to be to bring “China round to accepting India as an independent pole, even if it is a China-influenced world order”. New Delhi has deployed “military, economic and diplomatic instruments towards this end”, Ahmed wrote.There is no indication that this position will change. After the Tawang clash, former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya cautioned against cutting trade with China.“Engaging China in a trade war at this juncture will mean sacrificing a considerable part of our potential growth… purely on economic grounds, it will be unwise to take any action in response to it (transgressions on the border),” he told PTI.What dominates India-China trade?In analysis published in December 2022, the Indian Express reported that imports from Beijing “rose sharply” after the Galwan clash. It said that the top commodities that India bought were “electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof; sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers and parts; nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances and parts of thereof; organic chemicals; plastic and plastic articles; and fertilisers.”The most-valued Chinese items that India imported were personal computers, which accounted for $5.34 billion in 2021-22, followed by ‘monolithic integrated circuits-digital’ ($4 billion), lithium-ion used in batteries ($1.1 billion), solar cells ($3 billion) and urea ($1.4 billion).Meanwhile, the top commodities that China bought from India were ores, slag and ash; organic chemicals, mineral fuels, mineral oils and products of their distillation, bituminous substances, mineral waxes; iron and steel; aluminium and articles of thereof; and cotton.
