China in Trump Tariff Shadow Savours India’s Mangoes
Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, JL Nehru, Zou Enlai (Image credit X.com)
India’s Mango Exports to China Gain Momentum, Strengthening Bilateral Trade
By MANISH ANAND
New Delhi, May 4, 2025 – After 70 years, mangoes again hold center stage in India’s evolving relations with China. Bilateral ties soured with the 2020 violent Galwan skirmish in the eastern Ladakh is now being sweetened with mango delicacies.
“Indian mango has successfully launched in China recently. Big applause for the vibrant celebration of friendship, flavour and fruitful trade between our two countries,” Yu Jing, spokesperson for Chinese embassy in New Delhi, posted on X.
The data of the Ministry of Commerce said that mango shipments to China from India are now picking up. The sweetness of the king of fruits from India also comes at a time when world’s two largest populations are on verge of fully normalizing relations.
Chinese wholehearted welcome to Indian mangoes also came at a time when the people in India once more were disappointed to see trade deficit almost touching $100 billion in favour of Beijing in the last fiscal.
The Indian diplomatic community sweetly recalled the Mango Diplomacy of India in 1955. Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister of India, had gifted sapling of 1000 mango varieties to China in 1955. That was a return gift, for his Chinese counterpart Zou Enlai had presented him the lavish gifts of two spotted dears, red-crested crane, and 100 goldfish in 1954 per declassified documents of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Until Nehru gifted the sapling of mango varieties, China had been foreign to the taste of pulpy fruit grown in almost all parts of India. In seventy years, China replicated its famed reverse engineering to scale up mango cultivations by raising cross-bred varieties of mangoes.
While India’s annual export of mangoes is roughly valued at about $60 million, China almost equals Indian forex income by exporting the king of fruits. Chinese annual export of mangoes is also annually valued at about $59 million.
Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) data states that India exported 32,104.09 metric tonnes of fresh mangoes globally in 2023-24, valued at $60.14 million. India mango basket includes varieties like Alphonso, Kesar, and Chausa.
India mostly exports mangoes to the United States, Japan, and Middle Eastern countries. Lately, China has emerged as a promising destination. India began exporting mangoes to China only in 2004 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Beijing.
Reports said that China now has own varieties of Dasheri, Chausa, and Alphonso, grown in southern provinces of Hainan and Guangdong. Indian mango exporters face teething logistical challenges, besides strict phytosanitary standards.
India is hoping for a bumper mango harvest this year. The US-China trade war has given a new scope for the Indian mangoes to displace Chinese adaptation of India’s varieties, at least in Trump’s nation, which is world’s top consumption economy.
“Mangoes are more than a fruit; they’re a bridge between our cultures,” said Yu Jing. She possibly is hinting that the Mango Diplomacy in its second avatar will leave only sweet memory unlike Nehru-Zou bonhomie that seven years were buried on the high hills of the Himalayas in the 1962 War.
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