With China's aggressive assertion of its territorial claims causing general concern, it has taken to wooing one of its major rivals - India. While not spurning China's move, India is striving to broaden its diplomatic and military support.
After ignoring India and its security concerns, Beijing's new political leaders decided to make India a foreign-policy priority with the Chinese premier selecting India for his first foreign visit. Days after the Chinese incursion into Indian territory, the Indian prime minister, though, traveled to another rival of China's - Japan - and even extended his planned visit by a day. And as the Indian prime minister landed in Tokyo, the Chinese media attacked Japan for vitiating Indian minds against China. All this, in a matter of weeks!
The 20-day standoff between Chinese and Indian soldiers in the western sector of their disputed boundary in Ladakh has exacerbated distrust between the two nations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to India in May was supposed to assuage Indian anxieties. But Beijing has failed to explain why the Chinese soldiers took the provocative action. During Li's visit, India did not receive a satisfactory explanation, only a reassurance that the two sides should continue to talk about the border problem.
The Chinese premier did offer India a "handshake across the Himalayas," underlining the need for the world's two most populous nations to become a new engine for the global economy. But there was no breakthrough on key issues bedeviling Sino-Indian ties. Given the serious nature of bilateral problems, the three pacts signed during Li's visit were rather lame, aimed at boosting the export of buffalo meat and fishery products from India, and other trade in health products. Border disputes threaten the Sino-Indian bilateral relationship. But the Indian prime minister and Chinese premier could only ask their special representatives to examine the existing mechanisms and devise more measures to maintain peace along the border - hoping to reinvigorate boundary negotiations that are at a virtual standstill despite 15 rounds of talks.
Bilateral trade is touching $70 billion mark with the two states aiming for $100 billion by 2015. But Indian companies want better access to the Chinese market, and New Delhi remains concerned about the ballooning trade deficit in China's favor. India also has concerns about the effects on lower riparian states of activities in the upper reaches of shared rivers and wants greater Chinese transparency on Beijing's plans to develop water resources of the Brahmaputra River. Li's visit did not result in a full river treaty, as many in India had hoped, but Beijing agreed to share data on river flows. China remains noncommittal on providing advance information on the construction of dams on rivers leading to India.
Longer-term implications of the border crisis remain unclear, but new robustness in India's dealings with China was evident during Li's visit. India was vocal in demanding reciprocity and made it clear that peace on the border remains the foundation of the relationship - and that other aspects of relations will suffer if incidents like the Chinese incursion into Despang Valley continue.
