Presidential frontrunner Narendra Modi puts China, Pakistan on notice
Election front runner would get tough on border dispute and Muslim militants, say aides
India would get tougher on territorial disputes with China and in its old rivalry with Pakistan if opposition leader Narendra Modi becomes prime minister in May, two of his aides said yesterday.
Modi, a Hindu nationalist who is the front runner to win the five-week election starting on April 7, has taken an aggressive tone against the two neighbouring nations. On the campaign trail, he has warned Beijing to shed its "mindset of expansionism" and in the past he has railed against Pakistan, an Islamic state, for attacks by Muslim militants in India.
"I swear in the name of the soil that I will protect this country," Modi said at a rally in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh last month, a region claimed by China.
India, China and Pakistan are all nuclear powers. They are also jockeying to take positions in Afghanistan as Western troops start to withdraw from the war-torn nation after a 12-year insurgency.
You will see a more nationalistic approach ... to terrorism in our neighbourhood
India has fought three wars with Pakistan and had a 1962 border skirmish with China. It came close to a fourth war with Pakistan in 2001 but since then its foreign policy has been mostly benign.
Modi has painted the ruling Congress party, which has been in power for more than 50 of the 67 years since India became independent, as weak on national security. But the country is one of the top buyers worldwide of military hardware, purchasing US$12.7 billion in arms from 2007 to 2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, everything from basic military goods to an aircraft carrier.