China and India Try to Make Up
Having been propelled to the center of the global stage by their booming economies, China and India will have to set new terms for their long troubled relationship. And the prospects looked positive on Tuesday as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left Beijing with 11 memorandums signed and a renewed spirit of goodwill forged between the two titans of Asia. "We are at an exciting point in history when the center of gravity of the world economy is moving towards Asia," Singh told the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences earlier in the day. The agreement of principles adopted by the two sides was titled "A Shared Vision for the 21st Century."
But plenty of differences remain to cloud that shared vision, and will need many more such diplomatic exchanges — and a change in the political climate — before they're fixed. China and India have regarded each other more as foe than friend for much of the past half century. A border dispute following a wintry war fought in 1962 looks no closer to being resolved, and wasn't even on the agenda for Singh's visit. Many in India's policy circles still blame China for arming highly combustible Pakistan with nuclear weapons, and grumble at their eastern neighbor's efforts to historically stymie India's quest for nuclear technology — those this week's events pointed to a softening of Beijing's stance against India being allowed to acquire such technology. Indians also warily eye China's expanding influence in smaller nations throughout South Asia such as Nepal and Bhutan. Beijing, for its part, was upset by India's joint military exercises with the U.S. and Japan in the Bay of Bengal last November, which China saw as part of a U.S.-led effort to contain China's growth as a regional power. As both begin to flex their growing geo-political muscles, China and India find themselves uneasily locked in competition for resources and influence around Asia and, increasingly, the globe.
What brings both sides together, however, as it has done for generations, is commerce. The previous round of Sino-Indian talks in New Delhi last year set a goal of boosting bilateral trade to $40 billion by 2010 — that figure is likely to be eclipsed two years ahead of schedule, and was pumped up after this week's meetings to $60 billion. Business leaders on both sides are pressing for further measures to integrate their booming economies. Even on that front, significant obstacles remain. The Chinese despair over India's bureaucratic hurdles that stifle foreign investment; many in India, on the other hand, resent the country's spiraling trade deficit with China — nearing $10 billion — and pin it on the unfair advantages China's government affords its manufacturers. Two-thirds of India's exports to China are in bulk commodities and raw materials such as iron ore. "India is like a supplicant, and it's unsustainable," says G. Parthasarathy, a strategic analyst and former Indian diplomat.
Singh and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, made all the right noises this week about bridging divides. "Our systems are different," said Singh, "but people in both countries are united in their aspirations for a better future." He stressed India's need for "strategic autonomy" in order to allay Chinese suspicions of undue American influence. Wen did his part too, proudly declaring: "When China and India work together, it is good for peace and development in Asia and the world."
Others may be less sanguine about Sino-Indian consensus. The two countries, whose emerging markets are still driven by coal-fired industry, quickly found common ground on climate change — agreeing that the onus of curbing carbon emissions was not on them. And with vital energy interests of both countries vested in Burma's military junta, neither exerted much pressure on the regime during last October's brutal crackdown on dissent.
Although neither country wants confrontation with the other, friction will inevitably accompany the simultaneous rise of both China and India. But the pragmatic message of concord and cooperation crafted in Beijing this week reflects a shared preference for avoiding rancor. During his visit, Singh hailed the planning of Beijing's 2008 Olympics as "an inspiration." Chinese officials swiftly responded, offering aid and expertise for what's imagined as India's own coming-out party, the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Such symbolic confidence-building gestures and painstaking summitry may be more reminiscent of 1970s Cold War thaws than of exchanges between entrepreneurial powerhouses, but they are essential if the rivalry between India and China is to become a relic, rather than a harbinger, of a bipolar world.
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