On the surface, relations between India and China are positive. India’s economic ties with China are booming. China is set to emerge as India’s leading trade partner in the near future, leaving its current No 1 partner, the United States, behind. Between 2000 and 2005, trade with China registered a hike of 521%, whereas India’s trade with the US increased by only 63% during the same period.
There are regular high-level meetings between Asia’s two rising powers. India and China have just concluded their second round of “strategic dialogue” and declared 2006 a Sino-Indian friendship year. More important, they have agreed to cooperate, rather than compete, for global energy resources. The incipient Sino-Indian entente has prompted some to argue that it has the potential to alter Asian geopolitics radically.
Longtime observers of India-China relations, however, maintain that some improvement in the rhetoric and atmospherics notwithstanding, ties remain fragile and as vulnerable as ever to a sudden deterioration.
See also “A stiff learning curve” from Asia Times.
