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Abstract
‘Flowering relations’ between India and China in the early 1950s were based on peaceful co‐existence. But these withered and faded in an atmosphere of mutual hostility following the 1962 war between the two countries. A new phase of improved ties began with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in December 1988, resulting in the setting up of a Joint Working Group to defuse tension and ensure peace and tranquillity on the borders. Since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, India–China relations have not only steadily improved, but have strengthened in diverse fields of mutual interest. Apart from this, the contentious boundary issue has registered substantial progress, although uncertainty looms large as to when it will be finally resolved. Despite divergences in the perceptions and approaches of New Delhi and Beijing on issues such as Sino‐Pakistani military and strategic ties and India's Tibet policy, both countries have enormous potential and opportunities to expand and deepen their economic and trade ties in their mutual interest. Emerging trends indicate that both India and China would remain highly competitive in the global and regional trade and economic domain, and would continue to compete for status and influence in the Asian region in general, and in South Asia in particular.
Notes
Correspondence Address: B. M. Jain, University of Rajasthan, 4/87, Jawahar Nagar, Jaipur‐302004, India. Email: [email protected].
See Dennis Rumley (Ed.), Global Geopolitical Change and the Asia–Pacific: A Regional Perspective, Aldershot: Avebury and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1996; V. R. Raghavan, India–China Relations: A Military Perspective, New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1998; David M. Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing US–China Relations, 1989–2000, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 15–110; and Mikhail L. Titarenko, ‘Russia–China–India: tripartite cooperation and the US factor’, China Report, 39(3), 2003, pp. 343–350.
John Lall, ‘The Sino‐Indian border problem as a leftover of history’, in Surjit Mansingh (Ed.), Indian and Chinese Foreign Policies in Comparative Perspective, New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1998, p. 449; and M Rasgotra and V. D. Chopra (Eds), India's Relations with Russia and China: A New Phase, New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1997.
W. F. Van Eekelen, Indian Foreign Policy and the Border Dispute with China, The Hague: Martinus Nihoff, 1967, p. 55. For the psychological consequences of the Sino‐Indian War of 1962, see Jaswant Singh, Defending India, New York: Macmillan, 1999.
Quoted in Eekelen, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 54–55.
Henry Kissinger also shares Eekelen's analysis of this aspect. See Kissinger, ‘As China modernizes: obstacles on the way’, The Times of India, 25 January 1986.
Quoted in G. V. Ambekar and V. D. Divekar (Eds), Documents on China's Relations With South and Southeast Asia, 1949–1962, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 117.
For a detailed analysis of this aspect, see Liu Xuecheng, The Sino‐Indian Border Dispute and Sino‐Indian Relations, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994; and John B. Allock et al., Border and Territorial Disputes, Harlow: Longman, 1992.
See China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Selected Documents on Sino‐Indian Relations, December 1961–May 1962, Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1962.
Eekelen, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 160.
Ibid.
Quoted in Liu, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 138.
For a detailed background and analysis, see Steven Hoffman, India's China Crisis, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Liu, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 138.
Ibid., p. 139.
Allock et al., op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 435.
The Times of India, 20 December 1988.
For a comprehensive discussion of the myriad dimensions of the process of rapprochement between India and China, see Nilufar Choudhary, Sino‐Indian Quest for Rapprochement: Implications for South Asia, Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of International Strategic Studies, 1989.
For the full text of the agreement, see Foreign Affairs Record, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, External Publicity Division, Government of India, 11 November 1996, pp. 169–172.
John W. Garver, ‘The restoration of Sino‐Indian comity following India’s nuclear tests', The China Quarterly, December 2001, p. 686. See also J. N. Dixit, ‘China and South Asia: post‐Pokhran II’, Across Borders: Fifty Years of India's Foreign Policy, New Delhi: Picus Books, 1998, pp. 408–417.
See Garver, op. cit., Ref. 19, pp. 685–687.
For different shades of opinion and interpretation, see Ming Zhang, China's Changing Nuclear Posture: Reactions to South Asian Nuclear Tests, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999.
See B. M. Jain and Eva Maria Hexamer (eds), Nuclearisation In South Asia, Jaipur and Delhi: Rawat Publishers, 1999.
Xinhua News Agency, 18 January 2002.
Ibid.
See The Hindu, 24 June 2003, p. 1.
For details see The Times of India, 25 June 2003, p. 1.
For details, see ‘Arunachal is not India’s part: Beijing difference of perception', The Times of India, 26 July 2003, p. 1.
Quoted in The Hindu, 31 July 2003.
‘Indian, Chinese Foreign Ministers to meet later this year’, The Hindu, 5 August 2003, p. 9.
Ibid.
See The Indo‐US Joint Statement, 24 September 2002, Strategic Digest, 32(10), 2002, p. 124.
See V. S. Mani, ‘Indo‐US Non‐Extradition Pact’, The Hindu, January 2003.
See ‘China military official outlines anti‐terror policy’, News From China (Delhi: Embassy of the People's Republic of China), XV(4), 16–28 February 2003, p. 5.
For a study of this aspect, see Avery Goldstein, ‘The diplomatic face of China’s grand strategy: a rising power's emerging choice', The China Quarterly, December 2001, pp. 835–864.
See Teresa C. Schaffer, ‘Building a new partnership with India’, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2002, at www.lexis.com/research/retrieve.
For this part, see Poonam Mathur, ‘Premier Zhu Rongji’s visit to India', China Report, 38(3), 2002, pp. 415–421.
See Mohan Malik, ‘China’s southern discomfort', Asia Times Online, 11 July 2002.
Allen S. Whiting, ‘The future of Chinese foreign policy’, in Samuel S. Kim (Ed.), China and the World: Chinese Foreign Relations in the Post‐Cold War Era, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, p. 264.
Ibid.
Malik, op. cit., Ref. 37, p. 1.
Xinhua News Agency, 18 January 2002.
For the background, see Murray Hiebert with Kathy Chen, ‘Tackling China on arms sale’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 August 2003, p. 24.
C. V. Rangnathan, ‘The China threat: a view from India’, in Herbert Yee and Ian Storey (Eds), The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, p. 294.
See Garver, op. cit., Ref. 19, p. 865.
See John W. Garver, ‘Sino‐Indian rapprochement and the Sino‐Pakistan entente’, Political Science Quarterly, 111(2),1996, pp. 323–347.
See Barry Sautman, ‘Resolving the Tibetan questions: problems and prospects’, Journal of Contemporary China, February 2002, pp. 77–108.
‘Tibet: India’s bridge to China', The Hindu, 2 September 2002, p. 11.
William T. Tow observes: “China views Tibet as a potential staging post for the spread of ethnic and social disunity throughout the rest of Central and Inner Asia. So long as Beijing controls Tibet, the PRC will remain largely insulated against these subversive forces.” Tow, Asia–Pacific Strategic Relations, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 29.
See Bhim Sandhu, Unresolved Conflict: China and India, New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1988.
For details, see Tibetan Review (Delhi), May 2002, p. 15.
The Hindu, 24 June 2003, p. 1.
The Times of India, 25 June, 2003, p. 1.
Hua Zi, ‘Negotiating with the 14th Dalai Lama and the issue of regional autonomy’, News from China, XV(8), 16–30 April 2003, pp. 30–33.
For a comprehensive and analytical background of this part, see George Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham, ‘China’s coming transformation', Foreign Affairs, 80(4), 2001, pp. 26–39.
John Cherian, ‘Leadership change in China’, Frontline, 11 April 2003.
China Daily, 16 May 2002.
See The Hindu, 19 May 2003.
The Financial Times, 28 January 2002.
