Opinion The border of discontent

This curious exchange reflects the uneasiness between the two Asian giants as they continue their ascent in the global inter-state hierarchy. Even as they sign loftily worded documents year after year,distrust is actually growing at an alarming rate. True,economic cooperation and bilateral exchanges are at an all-time high; China is India’s largest trading partner. Yet this cooperation has done little to assuage each country’s concerns about the other’s intentions. The two sides are locked in a classic security dilemma,where any action taken by one is immediately interpreted by the other as a threat to its interests.

At the global level,the two sides have worked together on climate change,global trade negotiations and demanding a restructuring of global financial institutions. Mounting bilateral tensions,however,reached an impasse last year,when China took its territorial dispute with India all the way to the Asian Development Bank. There China blocked India’s application for a loan that included money for development projects in Arunachal Pradesh,which China continues to claim. Also,the suggestion by the Chinese to the US Pacific fleet commander last year that the Indian Ocean be recognised as a Chinese sphere of influence raised hackles in New Delhi. China’s attempt to block the US-India nuclear deal at the Nuclear Suppliers Group further strained ties.

China has upped the ante on the border issue. It has always protested Indian prime ministerial visits to Arunachal; but what caught many by surprise was the vehemence with which Beijing contested recent Indian administrative and political action there,even denying visas to Indian citizens from the state. The recent rounds of boundary negotiations have been a disappointing failure,with a growing perception in India that China is less willing to adhere to earlier political understandings about how to address the boundary dispute.

India’s challenge remains formidable. While it has not yet achieved the economic and political profile that China enjoys regionally and globally,it is increasingly bracketed with China. Indian elites,obsessed with Pakistan for more than 60 years,have suddenly found a new object of fascination. India’s main security concern now is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan but an ever more assertive China,a shift widely viewed as one that can facilitate better strategic planning.

India’s defeat at Chinese hands in 1962 shaped the elites’ perceptions of China,which are unlikely to alter anytime soon: China is viewed as a growing,aggressive nationalistic power whose ambitions are likely to reshape the contours of the regional and global balance of power with deleterious consequences for Indian interests. China’s recent hardening towards India could well be a product of its own internal vulnerabilities,but that is hardly a consolation to Indian policy-makers who have to respond to a public that increasingly wants India to assert itself in the region and beyond.

India is rather belatedly gearing up to respond with its own diplomatic and military overtures,setting the stage for a Sino-Indian strategic rivalry. Both India and China have an interest in stabilising their relationship by seeking out issues on which their interests converge,but pursuing mutually desirable interests does not inevitably produce satisfactory solutions to strategic problems. A troubled history coupled with the structural uncertainties engendered by their simultaneous rise is propelling the two Asian giants into a trajectory that they might find rather difficult to navigate in the coming years. Sino-Indian ties have entered turbulent times,and they are likely to remain there for the foreseeable future.

Pant,who teaches at King’s College,London,is the author of ‘The China Syndrome’ express@expressindia.com