Peace, not confrontation, helps in economic progress. The leaderships of both India and China understand this – the primary reason why the two sides set aside the past and broke bread after a four-year military and diplomatic stand-off. The meeting held between Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval in Beijing this week appears to have produced some results. The two sides have reached an understanding on a set of six subjects. The Union external affairs ministry explained in a statement that the meeting provided “positive directions for cross-border cooperation and exchanges, including resumption of the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, data sharing on trans-border rivers, and border trade.” The rest are in the realm of conjecture. Obviously, the issues between the two nations are vexed and would require time to thrash out.
The relationship between China and India is marked by repeated instances of aggression from the former, putting New Delhi on the defensive. The 1962 invasion was disastrous for India as the Government of Jawaharlal Nehru and the military wings were taken unawares. Nehru posed as the dove of peace on the world stage and failed to equip India with military prowess. The Chinese leadership took full advantage of this situation. India lost over 5000 sq-km of land along the northern border stretches. The animosity continued for a couple of decades until Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister opted for a thaw through a visit to China in 1988. The two sides decided to treat bygones as bygones and concentrate on the present. China benefited hugely from this in the subsequent decades. Through trade agreements, Chinese goods flooded Indian markets – as part of its global push. Claiming that it invested in peace to promote its economic progress, China quietly raised its military strength to emerge as the world’s third top military power – after the US and Russia.
China can be trusted to give pinpricks to India as and when it deems fit. Its leadership, through generations, has demonstrated ruthlessness of a high degree but is avoiding wars. What it did in Galwan in 2020 against India was a show of brute force, short of a war; what it attempted against Bhutan in 2017, in Doklam, which India attempted to halt, was a quiet military push to grab land, but here too it did not progress into a war. China keeps threatening Taiwan, the breakaway republic, with diplomatic muscle-flexing, but Beijing is wary of the US military support to the small nation in China’s south. It keeps a safe distance with the US. China being keen on its economic growth cannot afford to wage a war. Notable also is the fact that despite the acquisition of Rafale fighter jets etc., by the Modi government, China boasts five times the military prowess of India.
