“I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind” - Donald Trump.

“I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind” - Donald Trump. What could be a statement from Prime Minister Modi if he say something about China?

Beautiful question. We have no way to know whether Trump has read a hundred books on China or not.

But it is true that the US maintains a team of subject matter experts on every country which is critical, whose job is to sudsy anything and everything connected to that country and analyse every action or statement of that country inclusive of history, culture, geography, psychology, politics everything. They keep on supporting the president with their findings and analysis. The team includes both government employees as well scholars in the field. But despite such excellent groundwork, it doesn’t guarantee that the US will always be successful in engaging countries like China the way it wants. This is because China also keeps on working on its counter strategies.

In India we do not have such a robust system, We are mostly dependent on intelligence and inputs from the intelligence agencies and External Affairs Ministry resource pull.

US politics is more about foreign policy than the domestic politics. So it is imperative for their politicians to build up expertise in foreign policy and external affairs.

Whereas Indian politics is more about domestic policies of caste, creed, religion, region language, etc. To win the LS election here the party and the leadership have to understand the diversity of the nation and its dynamics. Understanding external affairs or foreign affairs is not at all a requisite criterion for winning an election here. So it could be possible that Modi G never studied anything about China during his early life or even during his tenure as CM of Gujarat. If at all he has studied anything about China, it could be now when he has become PM of India. But as a PM, he would hardly have enough time to make a deep study about China. However, don’t forget that he is an expert in people's skills and an expert in reading people. The complexity of Indian politics is a rich school in itself.