States for the economy

The past few days have all been about ties. First it was the Indo-US relations in the context of the nuclear deal. But that led to a review of Congress-Left ties, raising fears of a mid-term elections. Which in turn made the Trinamool Congress rethink its alliance with the NDA. But amid all these stories of relationships, there was one that seemed to be moving ahead without much fuss. In the past three weeks, two top provincial leaders from China’s Chongqing and Henan provinces were in Delhi to develop mutual economic ties. China apparently believes that it has to develop relations between provincial leaders for unhindered trade access. So the Chinese are proposing more of these chief ministerial and mayoral exchanges. Clearly, with the bilateral trade balance now in China’s favour, Beijing is looking to diversify—and carry out business on its own terms, say insiders.