This document provides an overview of Sino-Indian relations from their independence to modern day by examining the key dimensions and issues in their relationship. It discusses their differing independence struggles, border war in 1962, expanding economic ties but rising trade deficit, ongoing territorial disputes and distrust stemming from China's alliance with Pakistan. The relationship is characterized as having both expanding engagement but also an underlying competitive dimension and low trust due to strategic concerns on both sides.
This document provides an overview of Sino-Indian relations from their independence to modern day by examining the key dimensions and issues in their relationship. It discusses their differing independence struggles, border war in 1962, expanding economic ties but rising trade deficit, ongoing territorial disputes and distrust stemming from China's alliance with Pakistan. The relationship is characterized as having both expanding engagement but also an underlying competitive dimension and low trust due to strategic concerns on both sides.
This document provides an overview of Sino-Indian relations from their independence to modern day by examining the key dimensions and issues in their relationship. It discusses their differing independence struggles, border war in 1962, expanding economic ties but rising trade deficit, ongoing territorial disputes and distrust stemming from China's alliance with Pakistan. The relationship is characterized as having both expanding engagement but also an underlying competitive dimension and low trust due to strategic concerns on both sides.
This document provides an overview of Sino-Indian relations from their independence to modern day by examining the key dimensions and issues in their relationship. It discusses their differing independence struggles, border war in 1962, expanding economic ties but rising trade deficit, ongoing territorial disputes and distrust stemming from China's alliance with Pakistan. The relationship is characterized as having both expanding engagement but also an underlying competitive dimension and low trust due to strategic concerns on both sides.
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent
nation states in the late 1940s, India’s relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes. These decades do not lend themselves to easy periodization, punctured as they were by intense mutual suspicion, an occasional turn to fraternal bonhomie, a border war, bitter exchanges, and near conflict scenarios. It took almost three decades after the 1962 conflict for this relationship to start acquiring a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional character. Significant hurdles have marred the progress towards normalization, namely, the issue of Tibet, the China– Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, the nuclear issues, and the role of major powers. As civilizational countries, these two Asian giants were expected to settle their disputes peacefully. However, this couldn’t happen because of their Asian rivalry in particular and international relations in general. In the following study, our attempt would be to analyse Sino- Indian relations in its multiple dimensions – territorial relations, nuclear relations, diplomatic relations, encirclement of India by China and international relations. A Brief History
India and China gained their independence in 1947 and 1949
respectively. In both the countries, the independence struggle was opposite – India, for most part, had a non-violent freedom struggle whereas Chinese had fought their way to independence. This difference led to different types of governments being formed in both the countries – democracy in India and communist rule in China. India was the first non- communist country to recognize People’s Republic of China. After an initial period of friendship, this difference began to show when Chinese started stating their claims on different territorial positions and India refusing their claims. It ended with a war in 1962 which severed the ties for decades.
Yin and Yang of Sino-Indian Relationship
The yin and yang of India–China relations may be stated in terms of
a paradox: on the one hand, there is a visibly expanding and deepening multilevel engagement, and the remarkable increase of trade, and on the other hand the low levels of mutual trust and confidence. The mistrust most noticeably pervades the strategic communities on both sides, resonating in public perceptions as well the Indian media, which interrogate China’s actual intentions and stress the areas of competition within a framework of rivalry and conflict of interests. In fact, the belief that China would obstruct India’s rise as a major Asian and world power has a fairly tenacious hold in certain sections. The ‘Strategic Partnership’, by implication, affirmed that the India–China relationship had acquired a global and strategic character. It is clear that there is also a competitive dimension within which both countries are fashioning their respective ‘rise’, commensurate with their self-image and perception. Six issues amply demonstrate the manner in which the yin and yang are playing themselves out.
1. Economic Dynamism Trade between the two countries resumed in 1978 and the Most Favored Nation Agreement was signed in 1984. Trade between the two countries has increased from a mere US$339 million in 1992 to US$57.4 billion in 2018. Analysts, however, highlight two drawbacks: in terms of product composition, the Indian export basket is still extremely limited, comprising mostly primary products, and since 2005–6, we see a continuous and rising trade deficit in favor of China. India has consistently demanded that China give greater market access to Indian pharma and IT sectors (two areas where India is competitive) and there is undoubtedly urgent need to restructure India–China trade relations. The proposed Free Trade Area (FTA), putting together the markets of two of the most populous nations in the world would be even bigger than the current FTAs such as the European Union, NAFTA, ASEAN, APEC, etc. It is estimated that within the next decade, India and China will be among the ten most important bilateral trading relationships in the world. This trading partnership is viewed as window for peace by both the nations.
2. Pakistan as a factor in Sino-India relations
Arguably, it is the Sino-Pak alliance and their military ties, both in
the conventional and nuclear aspects, that generate greater mistrust within India. Indian policy-makers continue to be concerned about the range of conventional military sales, China’s construction of the Gwadar Port, and in particular, China’s violation of the NSG rules to supply civilian nuclear plants to Pakistan. Above all, Chinese presence and infrastructure building activities in the territory ceded to China by Pakistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, have generated serious concerns in India. The present Chinese position is that whatever cooperation there might have been between the two states earlier, it is clearly a thing of the past and in any case, such cooperation is not directed against any third country. However, the mistrust between the two states has led India to believe that the all-weather friends with common hostility towards the country see each other as counterbalance to India.
3. The US factor
India and China have attempted, with varying degrees of success,
to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by the post-Cold War environment, to have multi-dimensional engagements with all major powers. The investment/technology need of both has also enhanced the importance of strong ties with the advanced West. In this context the role of the United States—as the sole superpower—acquires a special significance. The United States and China have experienced a longer period of close political- strategic cooperation, and since the end of the bipolar world, the United States has been firmly in the center of Chinese strategic calculations and considerations. India too, had been moving closer to the United States, particularly since the late 1990s. Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation has also raised questions on the nature of this proximity and implications for the autonomy of Indian foreign policy. In the current scenario, the US response has been two-pronged: on the one hand it has sought to deal with China’s ‘rise’ by accommodating it as a responsible stakeholder in the globalizing world order, and on the other attempted to promote a strategic partnership with India which could constitute the classic counterweight. Indian reaction to the Sino-US collaboration and dialogue in the past has displayed a high degree of uneasiness and even umbrage. Similarly, the PRC’s apprehensions about India becoming a willing partner (or tool) of the Americans in containing China, could have a negative fallout. Both India and China would have to take full cognizance of the relationship of each with the United States (and the West)—neither in zero-sum terms nor as a hurdle in political cooperation amongst them.
4. India-China nuclear relations
India has claimed that China has assisted Pakistan to set up its nuclear program despite the NSG guidelines. This, along with China’s nuclear tests of 1964 are the major reasons behind the development of India’s nuclear program. This response irked the Chinese and was responsible for tensions between the two nations. There are various examples to support India’s claims. For example, Nehruvian denial for nuclear research till 1962 and his acceptance for the same in 1964. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s letter to the then US President Bill Clinton and the statement of Indian Parliament on 27th May 1998 proves the above claims. Beijing, however, denied India’s claim of any threat posed by it to New Delhi. 5. Encirclement of India by proxy and India’s counter 6. Territorial disputes a. Chinese territorial claims i) McMohan line
