From China Daily:
The buzz today is over the rise of China and India in the big global power shift, as witnessed during the recent Davos World Economic Forum. The two Asian giants’ rise is being reflected in the international arena. India is seeking a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, while China has been invited to attend the G-7 Finance Ministers’ Meeting in London, after its first invitation to a similar rendezvous in Washington last autumn.
In a speech to launch the Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore’s Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said, “As China and India grow, they will inevitably loom larger on each other’s radar screens. Economic growth will give Beijing and New Delhi the resources to pursue wider strategic interests across the Asian continent.”
But in fact, historical and cultural ties between China and India had already flourished between the first and 10th centuries AD, thanks to the arrival of Buddhism in China (and then in Japan, Korea and Viet Nam) via the Silk Road, that links India to China. This cultural dimension helped shape Chinese civilization from the Han Dynasty all the way to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the latter being considered the apogee, as well as then the decline, of Buddhism in China.
