Both India and China are developing countries with thousands of years of civilizational history; both with the declared intent of lifting its millions of poor.
The liberal democracies that consider the rest of the world almost uncivilized, want India to be the foil of the Chinese. Both are developing countries with thousands of years of civilizational history; both with the declared intent of lifting its millions of poor.
On the 50th anniversary of the Sino-Indian border war – the lowest point of the bilateral relationship – when one tries to take a stock of the relationship, since 1962, the issue that emerges as prime is the effort of both countries to leave behind the acrimony and move ahead on issues of mutual interest.
Despite this engagement for the past 50 years, when the existing tension between the two countries have only progressively lessened, large sections of the population in India still believe that they cannot trust the Chinese. However, at the level of the government, the leadership in New Delhi considers China as a “peer competitor.”
That catches the reality in a concise expression of policy. The theme, when expanded, translates into a twin track of competition and cooperation. Small wonder, the two countries – now considered the current flavours of economic expansion – are members of various politico-economic groupings, which carry weight in the global discourse.
These joint memberships range from the initiatives like Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), geared towards cooperative development of the Central Asian countries, to the platform of some developing country muscle-flexing through organisations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
At the bilateral level, China is India’s largest trading partner, having displaced the USA a few years ago. A large number of joint working groups (JWG) operate on various issues of political and economic relationships. The most important is of course the JWG on boundaries dividing the two countries.
The nettlesome problem of the McMahon Line, which China does not accept as a fair border demarcated by the British, is being dealt with almost by inches. There have been various occasions during the past two decades when the two countries have been on the edges of exchanging maps, they have eventually backed off from such positions.
So, the leaderships of the two countries have taken a path of pragmatism: let the JWG keep searching for common ground on the boundary issue, but the two countries will engage themselves on other issues of common concern without waiting for a resolution of the vexing border issue.
A process of normalization, that had begun with the late Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing and his famous meeting with China’s then supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, and consolidated later by a visit in 1990s of then prime minister, PV Narasimha Rao, is continuing without too many glitches. Though, there are occasional blips on the radar when the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) of China crosses what India considers to be the Line of Actual Control (LAC); while the Indian Army too making their own forays across what the Chinese consider to be their territory.
But these conflicting notions about the respective boundaries are quickly resolved through border meetings at the local level, seldom requiring the intervention of the apex level.
Still, the USA and the Western block consider they can hedge against China by entangling India into various security-related arrangements: of note, is the latest US ‘pivot’ in the Asia-Pacific region where Washington sees a role for India, thus ‘containing’ China’s rising influence in the region.
While, for India, the Asia-Pacific region does not fall in their area of strategic interest, as has been defined by many of the leaders, including that of successive Indian Navy chiefs. The recently retired navy chief, Admiral Nirmal Verma had marked it out to stretch from the Malacca Strait in the south-east to the Horn of Africa, in the west on the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
For China, Malacca Strait is crucial because through this narrow channel, 80 per cent of oil it imports pass through. For the first time, PLAN (PLA-Navy) has ventured beyond the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy operations. Chinese newspapers like the Global Times have declared that India should not consider the Indian Ocean to be its private water body, because the ocean carries its name.
But for India too, the heightened China competition, should make it imperative for New Delhi to study the changing internal dynamics of the Chinese socio-political scene.
Defence News - India China : Cooperation & Competition
The liberal democracies that consider the rest of the world almost uncivilized, want India to be the foil of the Chinese. Both are developing countries with thousands of years of civilizational history; both with the declared intent of lifting its millions of poor.
On the 50th anniversary of the Sino-Indian border war – the lowest point of the bilateral relationship – when one tries to take a stock of the relationship, since 1962, the issue that emerges as prime is the effort of both countries to leave behind the acrimony and move ahead on issues of mutual interest.
Despite this engagement for the past 50 years, when the existing tension between the two countries have only progressively lessened, large sections of the population in India still believe that they cannot trust the Chinese. However, at the level of the government, the leadership in New Delhi considers China as a “peer competitor.”
That catches the reality in a concise expression of policy. The theme, when expanded, translates into a twin track of competition and cooperation. Small wonder, the two countries – now considered the current flavours of economic expansion – are members of various politico-economic groupings, which carry weight in the global discourse.
These joint memberships range from the initiatives like Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), geared towards cooperative development of the Central Asian countries, to the platform of some developing country muscle-flexing through organisations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
At the bilateral level, China is India’s largest trading partner, having displaced the USA a few years ago. A large number of joint working groups (JWG) operate on various issues of political and economic relationships. The most important is of course the JWG on boundaries dividing the two countries.
The nettlesome problem of the McMahon Line, which China does not accept as a fair border demarcated by the British, is being dealt with almost by inches. There have been various occasions during the past two decades when the two countries have been on the edges of exchanging maps, they have eventually backed off from such positions.
So, the leaderships of the two countries have taken a path of pragmatism: let the JWG keep searching for common ground on the boundary issue, but the two countries will engage themselves on other issues of common concern without waiting for a resolution of the vexing border issue.
A process of normalization, that had begun with the late Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing and his famous meeting with China’s then supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, and consolidated later by a visit in 1990s of then prime minister, PV Narasimha Rao, is continuing without too many glitches. Though, there are occasional blips on the radar when the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) of China crosses what India considers to be the Line of Actual Control (LAC); while the Indian Army too making their own forays across what the Chinese consider to be their territory.
But these conflicting notions about the respective boundaries are quickly resolved through border meetings at the local level, seldom requiring the intervention of the apex level.
Still, the USA and the Western block consider they can hedge against China by entangling India into various security-related arrangements: of note, is the latest US ‘pivot’ in the Asia-Pacific region where Washington sees a role for India, thus ‘containing’ China’s rising influence in the region.
While, for India, the Asia-Pacific region does not fall in their area of strategic interest, as has been defined by many of the leaders, including that of successive Indian Navy chiefs. The recently retired navy chief, Admiral Nirmal Verma had marked it out to stretch from the Malacca Strait in the south-east to the Horn of Africa, in the west on the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
For China, Malacca Strait is crucial because through this narrow channel, 80 per cent of oil it imports pass through. For the first time, PLAN (PLA-Navy) has ventured beyond the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy operations. Chinese newspapers like the Global Times have declared that India should not consider the Indian Ocean to be its private water body, because the ocean carries its name.
But for India too, the heightened China competition, should make it imperative for New Delhi to study the changing internal dynamics of the Chinese socio-political scene.
Defence News - India China : Cooperation & Competition
)has widened its orbit of patrols beyond Chinese territorial waters ahem ahem I mean Indian oceans. Last year alone there were 22 documented “contacts” in the Indian Ocean with vessels suspected to be Chinese attack submarines on extended patrol.
