Hello, Warriors! If recent news is to be believed, China has deployed advanced radars and drones in its border areas under an integrated round the clock frontier monitoring system to check infiltration and drug trafficking on the Indian border in Tibet as well as in Xinjiang and Yunnan regions.
This news comes just weeks after India and China held a bilateral military exercise, Hand in Hand-2015.
So, the real issue here is that whether China is a friend or a foe of India; or ‘frenemy’, maybe?
Well, to start with, the relation between any two countries is determined by various factors including sustained economic growth, energy procurement, climate change, and so on.
India is destined to become a great economy by 2025 along with China. Moreover, India and China are longtime adversaries. The 1962 war was a humiliating debacle for India. In India’s national security establishment, and the country more generally, China is considered a principal threat.
On the economic front, two-way trade amounted to nearly $65 billion in 2013 compared to a mere $3 billion in 2000. China has become India’s top trade partner, though the substantial surpluses it racks up ($31 billion last year) rankle India.
India’s GDP is about 35 percent of China’s, its defense budget less than 37 percent. Whether it’s infrastructure, foreign-investment inflows, living standards, education, technology or military might, China leads by a wide margin.
Among the problems between India and China is the border dispute. Many times in the previous years, Chinese troops crossed the line of control in the western Aksai Chin sector, offering reminders that it remains a potential source of war. For China, the Aksai Chin region in the western sector matters most: it connects Xinjiang and Tibet, regions in which anti-Han nationalism has been increasing. India maintains that China occupies 43,000 square kilometers of Indian land in the west; in the east, Chinese claims encompass 90,000 square kilometers of Arunachal Pradesh.
Well, India and China do have taken up some common issues to tackle. China and India engaged in unprecedented coordination during the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009. This cooperation has been followed by frequent four-party talks among China, India, Brazil, and Mexico.
China-India relations remain too complex to be explained in simplistic format of friend or foe. If at all one has to define the Indo-Chinese relationship, it’s like between two classmates who’re neither friends nor foes, trying to compete against one another, but with more promise of becoming friends than foes, as both realize they’re the best in the class, and by hanging together, they can take on the big boys of other classes and schools much better.
But for the time being, let the political masters lead their country’s path.
