Publications

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit this week to Beijing is another step in the glacial movement of Sino-Indian relations that have been frozen since India was defeated in a border war in 1962. In the past decade or so, both sides have re-engaged with each other – exchanging high-level visits, marking important anniversaries, opening trade and travel, and holding talks on a range of issues. But the relationship is characterized by four disconnects that will continue to constrain relations.

The first disconnect is that though both India and China have fast-growing economies and increasingly far-flung and activist foreign policies, China is ahead of India on nearly every important measure of social and economic development and its leverage, relevance, and role in geostrategic issues exceeds that of India. There are many reasons for this state of affairs, and there are some cases – particularly economic development – contested, but they do not change the fact that China’s economic and political rise as well as its regional and global relations makes it more important to India than vice versa.