China-India Relations: Strategic Engagement and Challenges Asie Visions, No. 34, September 2010
Sino-Indian relations have become increasingly significant and produced widespread implications. The evolving bilateral relationship is reasonably seen as a result of their shifting strategies and the ever-changing global politico-economic situation. On the political front, high-level interaction plays an important role in improving Sino-Indian ties. The political willingness to improve relations helps kick-start the significant process of building confidence and trust in different areas and at various levels.
As two fast-growing economies and developing giants, both China and India have pledged to contribute to bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Vibrant economic and trade links have been an essential part of the bilateral partnership over the last decade. Economic momentum will continue, although the supporting effects of economic interaction on a credible partnership have to be confirmed. Enhanced political engagement and pragmatic strategic calculus have also pressed both sides to explore defense, security and non-traditional security cooperation. The burgeoning military interaction is of pragmatic significance to nurturing mutual trust on the strategic level and achieving reciprocal accommodation.
While promising a stable bilateral relationship and peaceful rise together on the global stage, expanding engagements between China and India still face some formidable strategic challenges. Among the strategic discords are a protracted boundary dispute, diverging projections of geopolitical interest, security ties with other powers and regional actors - especially with Pakistan and the United States, and China's response to India's aspiration to be a UNSC member and enter the global nuclear club.
To move the Sino-Indian partnership forward and make it more credible, some major endeavors have to be made by both sides:
- To seek an early settlement of the border problem and prevent the enduring stalemate from completely undermining the confidence to seek a mutually acceptable recipe;
- To reconcile regional strategies in South Asia, Central Asia, ASEAN, and the Indian Ocean;
- To promote confidence-building measures and remove misperceptions and misreading of each other's strategic intentions, and to envisage each other's core interests and strategic sensitivities;
- To reinforce the bolstering effect of vibrant trade and economic links in sustaining a stable bilateral relationship; and
- To breathe more substance into the existing framework of the declared Sino-Indian strategic partnership.