India-China Relations

The meeting between Dr. Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Hanoi on 28-29 October has brought about a warming of the atmosphere and may lead to progress in Sino-Indian relations.

China’s moves concerning Kashmir evoke apprehension regarding retrogressive changes in its Kashmir policy, designed to give it a hold over India. The best case scenario for China is that the Kashmir issue is never resolved; and if this issue inches towards any kind of resolution, that China should be considered a party to the Kashmir dispute.

The paper provides three plausible explanations for the increase in China’s aggressive postures in India’s eastern sector and a few policy recommendations are offered for consideration.

Shaping responses towards the issue of Chumbi Valley would perhaps require a penetrating understanding of the “reality” that defines China’s political trajectory in South Asia in coming years.

Defence cooperation and military engagement between India and China are aspects of the complex mix of conflict and cooperation approach to bilateral relations between the two Asian giants. It is based on the presumption that there is a security dilemma between the two countries. However, it recognises the framework and postulates of what is called cooperative security. Through the liberal institutionalist’s perspective, it argues that India-China defence cooperation and military engagement are not only possible but also desirable.

A recent New York Times report that 11,000 soldiers of the Peoples’ Liberation Army have been stationed in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of the PoK, carries important implications for India. For India to put forth its legitimate claim to the whole of Kashmir, the time is now or else, never.

Indian decision makers played down the problems in the India-China relationship for the past decade in the expectation that deepening engagement would influence attitudes at the top level in China and thereby enable hardened positions to soften.

Sixty years for a human being may mean looking back, 1 taking stock of things and preparing to retire from active life. But for a nation it means more than just looking back to the path traversed. It involves looking to the future with confidence. Sixty years of India–China relations raises the significant question whether the two Asian giants could look to their bilateral relations with confidence.

The various diplomatic rows and even the border problem are symptoms of the larger problems that exist between India and China – the competition for status, influence and power.

This article argues that in contradiction to the conventional wisdom that the Sino-Indian rivalry is one-sided (with only India viewing China as a rival); China has always factored India in its strategic calculus. The Sino-Indian relationship is asymmetric only to the extent that while India regards China as its 'principal rival', China considers India as only one of its (many) 'strategic rivals' as opposed to the principal one. This article also analyses articles related to India published in English-language Chinese journals in recent years.