Sino-Indian Relations

The objective of this paper is to examine how patterns of Indian and Chinese reporting on Myanmar reflect the political climates of each country. A sample of 94 articles from Indian sources and 106 articles from Xinhua News Agency (English) was examined using content-analysis techniques. There is a clear divergence in the topics covered by the Indian and Chinese media during the time period reviewed, 3 November to 17 November 2010, which was selected to coincide with Myanmar’s first nationwide elections in twenty years as well as the release of political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. The Indian press provided more coverage of Suu Kyi’s release and of Myanmar political affairs than the Chinese press, but neither India nor China covered Suu Kyi’s activities in the days following her release. The Chinese press provided more coverage of economic affairs and the Myawaddy border crisis, which the Indian press ignored. Surprisingly, the press in nondemocratic China attentively chronicled and promoted Myanmar’s elections while the press in democratic India had very little to say about them. This suggests that on these issues, the press focus on what they perceive to be in the national interest of their respective countries.

This paper investigates the threat of a water war between China and India. It argues that Indian suspicion of China has been premature. Beijing has not yet given its approval for major water diversion projects in Tibet, it has taken some limited steps toward easing the concerns of the Indian government and a growing number of Chinese experts have taken an interest in developing institutional frameworks for managing transboundary rivers. However, a definitive settlement or cooperation will be difficult because both countries perceive themselves as the victim of a greedy neighbor. While India complains about China’s ravenous exploitation of the Himalayan rivers, it is common in China to accuse India of exaggerating the Chinese threat and being unreasonable in its demands.

The “all-weather” Sino-Pakistan relations, characterized especially by Beijing’s position on the Kashmir issue and its long-standing and close defense ties with Islamabad, continue to affect New Delhi’s threat perceptions and Sino-Indian relations. Beijing’s need to sustain friendly relations with Pakistan stems from its desire to mitigate ethnic separatist problems, improve energy security and execute its policy of hedging against a rising and future rival in India. Despite the changing international and regional security environments and Beijing’s more balanced South Asia policy, this need is viewed in New Delhi as a major obstacle to enhancing mutual trust and improving bilateral relations between China and India. Conversely, without de-hyphenating Sino-Indian ties, the Pakistan factor will remain a point of contention in fully developing the increasingly important relationship between Asia’s two rising powers.

Tibet is a key factor in India-China relations. It is only after the 1950 Chinese occupation of Tibet that India and China came to share the now disputed common border. In recent years, China’s military buildup and infrastructure development in Tibet, as well as reported plans to divert or dam rivers that rise in Tibet and flow into India, have raised India’s anxieties. Conversely, China’s insecurity about Tibet is an important driver of its approach toward India. India has been unable to assuage China’s fears about its possible use of the presence of the Dalai Lama in India and its large Tibetan refugee population of about 120,000 to create trouble for China in Tibet. The presence of the Dalai Lama and a large community of Tibetan refugees in India has kept the “Tibetan question” alive. Given India’s open democratic system and long tradition of giving refuge to persecuted peoples, India will find it politically impossible to meet China’s expectations on the Tibet question without a significant quid pro quo. The breakdown of talks between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama does not augur well for the future, and a post-Dalai Lama situation could become much more complicated. Of late, China’s aggressive territorial claims on India, the deepening of the China-Pakistan alliance and a shift in China’s position on Kashmir has led to a hardening of India’s position on Tibet. India is now seeking satisfaction on what it considers to be the core issues relating to India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. India-China relations are unlikely to be on an even keel until this tangled knot is unraveled.

Energy and climate change are two important areas in which there is much more cooperation than competition between China and India. After a few years of trying to outbid each other for oil and gas exploration and production licenses, both have found it more productive to bid jointly for many such contracts. Even though neither China nor India has agreed to limits on their emissions of greenhouse gases, both are committed to reducing the carbon intensity of their development, by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 for China, and 20 to 25 percent over the same time period for India. To achieve these goals, the two countries have launched major programs to install power plants using renewable energy sources and nuclear energy, and to increase the efficiency of energy use. It is unlikely that either China or India will agree to absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from their present levels soon, but they may be willing to cap them at future levels that still permit their future per capita income to become comparable to that of countries in Western Europe. At the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, China was strongly supportive of a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period, but India indicated that it may be willing to explore other approaches suggested by the United States, the EU and small island nations. Though their paths to addressing climate change may begin to differ, it is highly likely that China and India will continue to share the same strategic goal of achieving parity with the West in terms of standard of living of their populations, even if it means higher emissions for another decade or two.

This article explores the strategies used by China and India, two emerging global economies, to build a strong relationship with Africa. It analyzes China and India’s competing interests and strategies around four broad issues: access to Africa’s potentially vast markets, development cooperation, diplomatic influence and energy security. Several questions are raised based on the nature, similarities, differences and impacts of Chinese and Indian strategies. Will these create a new dynamism in South-South relations, or lead to a new form of asymmetrical relations between Africa and its Asian giant friends? What are the likely implications of closer Sino- and Indo-African ties for the continent’s relations with the West, Africa’s traditional trading partner, with which it has long-established relations, economic and strategic interests? In seeking explanations or answers, we caution that the differences between Chinese and Indian strategies of engagement are more of form than intent, underscoring the primacy of the competing national interests that do not completely foreclose mutually reinforcing strategies. We note that India’s strategies presently swing between playing “catch up” with China—which has clearly made greater inroads—and pragmatically accommodating Chinese and other interests in Africa. There are even instances, as in the case of the Sudanese oil industry, in which Chinese and Indian oil companies are cooperating as partners in an oil producing consortium, despite competing in other African countries. While the emerging scenario is one of competition that is moderated to some extent by accommodation, we conclude, based on certain conditions, that in the medium to long term, India may turn out to be more competitive than China in its engagement strategies with Africa.

It is now a part of conventional wisdom that both China and India are emerging economic, political and even military powers in the 21st century. Terms such as “BRIC” and “Chindia,” and phrases such as “not China or India, but China and India” have entered popular discourse and policy discussions. Such terms imply a synergistic relationship between China and India—an implication that belies the tension that has characterized Sino-Indian relations for centuries. My view is less sanguine than many others’ about the prospects of their relations. Relations between the two countries will be fraught with difficulties and will likely remain fragile. Conflict and competitiveness are deeply rooted in historical and structural causes, while forces for harmony are more contingent on political will, cultural understanding and careful policy management. There are several areas in which their relations can go wrong. At a fundamental level, the two countries are in an economically competitive, not a complementary, relationship with each other. Their economic and social endowments are similar (as compared with China/U.S. or India/U.S.). India and China offer very different lessons about economic policies and growth. This is not to suggest that the two countries are headed toward an inevitable collision, but to identify the urgency of carefully managing their relations and nurturing trust and goodwill on both sides.

The recent and growing technology trade among India, China and the rest of the world is punctuated with distinctive trajectories and dynamics. Propelled by the simultaneous phenomena of impressive economic growth and increasing technological capabilities, the two countries under review have made a paradigmatic shift from being predominantly technology-importing countries in the 1980s to technology-exporting countries at the beginning of the 21st century. The consequent outcome of this process is the changing composition of technology exports wherein the share of technology-intensive products is increasing in their overall export baskets, which is a clear indication of the two countries’ growing technological prowess. A key element in this growth is that the technology component in the overall bilateral trade between India and China is increasing both in volume and diversification. A considerable part of China’s exports to India constitute technology-intensive products, but primary goods dominate Indian exports to China, revealing China’s edge over India. This is likely to change as India strengthens its comparative advantage in software and begins to catch up with China in sectors such as manufacturing. These developments have several implications not only for their economies, but also for those in both developed and developing countries.

Despite close geographical proximity and centuries-old ties, the relationship between China and India has been filled with obstacles and stumbling blocks. The majority of academic research and media reports tend to examine relations at the national level, yet cities have become increasingly important due to urbanization and globalization. This paper argues that, through the city platform, India and China can turn potential cooperation into reality. The differences between Chinese and Indian cities beget complementarity that provides great potential for cooperation. Local governments in both China and India have high levels of administrative power in decisionmaking. Cooperation between cities can avoid many obstacles that prevail in national-level cooperation. Local governments will not only be motivated to cooperate, but also can accomplish a great deal in promoting cooperation between the two countries. The conditions for city cooperation are improving. Cities can and should become a key path and a new engine for Sino-Indian cooperation.

Submerged tensions between India and China have pushed to the surface, revealing a deep and wide strategic rivalry over several security-related issues in the Asia-Pacific area. The U.S.-India nuclear deal and regular joint naval exercises informed Beijing’s assessment that U.S.-India friendship was aimed at containing China’s rise. China’s more aggressive claims to the disputed northern border—a new challenge to India’s sovereignty over Kashmir—and the entry of Chinese troops and construction workers in the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region escalated the conflict. India’s reassessment of China’s intentions led the Indian military to adopt a two-front war doctrine against potential simultaneous attacks by Pakistan and China. China’s rivalry with India in the Indian Ocean area is also displacing New Delhi’s influence in neighboring countries. As China’s growing strength creates uneasiness in the region, India’s balancing role is welcome within ASEAN. Its naval presence facilitates comprehensive cooperation with other countries having tense relations with China, most notably Japan. India’s efforts to outflank China’s encirclement were boosted after Beijing unexpectedly challenged U.S. naval supremacy in the South China Sea and the Pacific. The Obama Administration reasserted the big picture strategic vision of U.S.-India partnership first advanced by the nuclear deal. Rivalry between China and India in the Indian Ocean, now expanded to China and the United States in the Pacific, is solidifying an informal coalition of democracies in the vast Asia-Pacific area.

“The world has enough for both of us” has come to be a regular refrain of Chinese and Indian leaders. Even academic commentaries sometimes use this argument to explain why Asia’s two fastest growing economies and increasingly dynamic billion-plus-strong societies will not clash as they pursue peaceful development. Their relationship continues to be examined in simplistic dichotomies of competition or cooperation, rivals or partners, friends or foes, etc., ignoring the complex nature of their evolution and interactions. This paper argues that their continued rapid economic growth and resultant ever-expanding engagement with the external world is not completely innocent, and that their growth has begun to influence their bilateral relations. Prima facie, multilateral forums provide China and India with a relatively neutral playground in which the two countries have gradually begun to decipher their stronger commonality of interests in addressing their regional/global challenges within multilateral settings. This expanding mutual trust and understanding at the multilateral level is expected to have a positive impact on the nature of their historically complicated bilateral equations. No doubt, their difficult bilateral engagement also impacts their interactions at the multilateral level and their mutual trust deficit circumscribes their joint strategies in multilateral forums. Yet, on balance, contemporary Sino-Indian relations seem to mark a clear shift in the center of gravity from a bilateral to a multilateral matrix. This shift is now discernible enough to stand scrutiny and also to guide the future direction of Sino-Indian equations.

China and India remain locked in a stagnant embrace when it comes to the most intractable of security dilemmas: the Sino-Indian border issue. A closer look at Chinese and Indian strategic, scientific and academic experts’ security perceptions vis-à-vis one another reveals that there is much more to the Sino-Indian security dynamic than meets the eye. Chinese and Indian strategic analysts hold divergent interests when evaluating each other’s military modernization, the former preoccupied with India’s naval development and the latter with China’s army. Technical analysts in each country share a similar level of interest in the other’s aviation and aerospace programs. Scholars exhibit a strong, if not symmetrical, level of focus on the other country’s nuclear strategy and status. Using this tripartite discourse as a baseline, this essay provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of each group’s perceptions to better understand Sino-Indian security relations and to propose measures within each arena to enhance mutual understanding. It shows that the Sino-Indian security dilemma cannot be simply viewed through the prism of the border anymore.

China and India have had an often turbulent relationship. At the state level, strategic and diplomatic relations between the two are fraught with complications, tensions and misgivings that many observers believe are destined to continue for the foreseeable future. The purpose of this paper is to detail the various opportunities for cooperation that stem from the common challenges that China and India face as they continue to develop into major global powers. We argue that the key to successful cooperation will not occur at the intergovernmental level; rather, it will be based upon the building of social and cultural bridges between the Chinese and Indian people.

Seventeen years after publishing “India: A New Tiger on the Block?” in the Spring/ Summer 1994 issue of the Journal of International Affairs, Arvind Panagariya revisits his analysis of India’s 1991 economic reforms and looks ahead to India’s economic prospects in a changing world order.

In an interview with José Vericat of the Journal of International Affairs, Kishore Mahbubani, dean and professor in the practice of public policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, situates Sino-Indian relations in historical context, explains the U.S.-China-India balancing act and assures us that the rise of two somewhat acrimonious giants is not all bad news.

The rise of China and India has reshaped Asia’s regional dynamics, as well as its position in the world. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the region’s most prominent multilateral organization, is made up of much smaller states that are vulnerable to the ups and downs of their more influential neighbors, China and India. Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary general of ASEAN, explains the economic, security and diplomatic dynamics of the organization’s interactions with China and India to the Journal’s José Vericat.

For better or worse, India and China are major players in the changing balance of power, though their exact role is still to be determined. In an interview with Rikha Sharma Rani for the Journal of International Affairs, Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution and former U.S. deputy secretary of state, reflects on the future of international relations, the position of India and China therein, and the view from the United States.