Beijing, May 7 - If BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi comes to power, it could bring India and China closer, says an influential state-run Chinese daily.

The Global Times in a write up says that Modi was once a "practical businessman". After he became chief minister of Gujarat he established good relations with China.

"A large number of Chinese enterprises invested in Gujarat, contributing to the economic development of the state. Therefore, ties between China and India may become closer under Modi's leadership," says the daily.

The article, titled 'Modi victory could cause disquiet in West', says that "there is still visible disquiet about the prospects of the election in mainstream Western media".

It says that some Western media and observers are "trying to foment discord between China and India by hyping up nationalist Modi's aggressive statements on the border issue between the two countries. They underscored the possibility that India will ally with Japan and Vietnam to contain China after Modi becomes the prime minister".

"In fact, it has been a policy for India to offset the negative effects of China's rise by enhancing strategic cooperation with countries around China. It's unlikely that Modi will change this policy. However, it doesn't mean he will strengthen the trend," says Liu Zongyi, a strategic analyst from the state-run Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

The article says the Bharatiya Janata Party manifesto promises a multilateral diplomacy and the establishment of "a web of allies" to further India's best national interests, "which steers away from a tilt toward the US held by India in diplomacy in the past decades. This has caused worries from the West".

It says that while Western countries like the US hope to use India to counterbalance China, "but they don't support India on issues of the country's core interests. The US withdrawal from its super-loose monetary policy led to a sharp devaluation of the rupee and capital flight from India and the US-designed Trans-Pacific Partnership excludes India.

"Therefore, India has strengthened coordination with emerging countries such as China and Russia over a spectrum of global issues.

"India in the future will chase more strategic independence. The West has adapted to an India with a weak central government in the past decades. It is afraid that a strongman like Russian President Vladimir Putin will make India really strong and build the country into a challenger to the West economically and politically. The US is particularly upset with the enhanced strategic cooperation among China, Russia and India," the article says.

"The extreme nationalist stand of the BJP has changed. Modi as a prime minister will face different tasks from when he was merely a politician. Modi in the past used some stained political means to seek the support within the party. But if he assumes the prime ministerial post, he will be confronted with bigger challenges than local politics."

The author says that the BJP will have to "organise the government with coalition partners. It's very unlikely that Modi will become a dictator."(IANS)