Sino-Indian Relations: From Conflict Cooperation
During the 1950’s the relations between India and China were flowery, based on the peaceful coexistence, but the Tibet issue, followed by a border dispute poisoned the climate of Sino-Indian entente cordiale.
-Nehru’s policy of no-dispute and no-negotiation policies finally led to a border war in 1962. From then on, Sino-Indian relations entered an era of cold war which lasted nearly 20 years. However during the era of Rajiv Gandhi (1988), the tension between the two countries was minimized and initiatives were taken for improvement in the relations. Since the end of cold war the relations between the two countries has steadily improved, and also strengthened in various fields of mutual interest.
-The continuous visits between the heads of state and officials have strengthened the relations and various issues including the border issue haves been in the discussion for resolution by mutual cooperation
The Cold Peace that has characterized China-India relations since their 1962 border war has persisted into the 21st Century. Today, as in the past, elements of cooperation and competition are advancing in tandem, though the latter has been accelerating more rapidly in recent years.
Today, South Asia stands at the front-line of a major westward expansion of Chinese interests and
influence, one embodied by China’s ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) New Maritime Silk
Road Initiative.
Designed to advance a web of interrelated military, economic, diplomatic, and energy security-related initiatives and objectives, OBOR, and the growing presence of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the Indian Ocean, have revived Indian fears about Chinese encirclement and a neo-“String of Pearls.”
China’s westward expansion has also marked a new chapter in a decades-old struggle for
influence in regional capitals between Beijing and Delhi; a competition in which China has gained
considerable ground over the past decade.
China’s interest in South Asia is by no means novel: throughout the 20th Century Beijing made
repeated attempts at establishing political, military, and economic relationships in the capitals
ringing India’s periphery. And regional capitals have long sought to play the “China card” to
balance against Indian power. Yet attempts to do so in the past were met with prohibitive costs
from Delhi and the dalliances with Beijing proved short lived.
Today that is no longer the case. Since 2005 China has made substantial gains in countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, effectively eroding India’s longstanding monopoly of influence.
In all three countries China has seized on opportunities generated by political instability and civil conflict to establish a foothold.
In all three cases, the U.S. and India attempted to sanction and isolate those regimes in
response to democracy violations or human rights abuses. And in all three countries China eagerly
filled the void with military or diplomatic assistance and billions of dollars in investments and
loans.
In each case China’s strategy produced not just new diplomatic partnerships, but important
geopolitical benefits, including support for its “One China” policy and its new OBOR initiative.
Once a refuge for Tibetan migrants exiting and entering the plateau, the flow of Tibetans through
Nepal has fallen from between two and three thousand just a few years ago to virtually zero today.
At China’s behest, Kathmandu has substantially restricted the activities and freedom of Tibetan
migrants in Nepal.
In Sri Lanka, China has established a substantial presence at the country’s two largest ports,
Colombo and Hamabantota. After showering Sri Lanka in billions of dollars in commercial interest
loans, the country’s debt has tripled over the past decade. China has agreed to ease the terms of its loans in exchange for exclusive rights over sensitive port facilities and infrastructure.
Last year the Maldives hastily passed a constitutional amendment overturning a ban on land
ownership by foreigners. The new text permits foreigners to purchase land if they invest more
than $1 billion in a project, and if reclaimed land accounts for at least 70% of the completed
project area. Critics note China is the only country with the financial resources and land
reclamation experience to benefit from such a deal.
As China’s diplomatic footprint in South Asia has grown, regional politics have become
increasingly bifurcated. More and more, regional political actors are assuming overt “pro-India”
or “pro-China” hues, and political transitions are viewed through the lens of which power has
“won” or “lost,” though in governance the distinction is rarely straightforward. With China’s
regional profile poised to expand further still, this zero-sum competition is likely to shape regional
politics for the foreseeable future.
Notably, legs of both the continental “Belt” and the maritime “Road” pass through the Indian Ocean and South Asia. As if to underscore the region’s centrality to OBOR, during a 2015 visit to Pakistan, President Xi announced $46 billion in investments in a new China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), linking the Chinese-run port of Gwadar in Pakistan’s south to China’s Xinjiang province. The first project to receive funding from a New Silk Road Fund was a $1.65 billion for a hydropower dam near Rawalpindi, Pakistan
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