Future of India China Relation (Part 1)

This is the era of Nationalists. Whether its Britain, USA, China, India, France or Indonesia, nationalist (who have promised to make their own country great) have come to power.

Two of the great powers – China & India are also following same trend. Xi Jinping & Modi both are nationalists as per their own standard. China had started playing a more active role in world arena 10-15 years back & India is gradually shedding its inertia about world politics. Both have aspirations to lead the world. China’s economic miracle has been followed by Indian development. China has done wonders in pausing millions of poor out of poverty line in last 2 decades. India has amazing functional democracy which is slowly picking up the development ladder. China is the manufacturing capital of the world where as India is IT capital of world. I live in Indian IT city of Bangalore. It’s hard to find a big multinational IT or product company who doesn’t have office in Bangalore (leave India).

But can two neighbors become great or super powers. Let’s look at history. Ancient Indian & Persian empires co-existed with mutual respect & fear. Whenever Persia was ruled by foreigners, they attacked India (with some exception). Medieval & Modern Europe had many great & super powers. England replaced Spain as paramount naval power with war. England & France fought each other for centuries but they had different sphere of influence in Europe, Asia & Africa. Even Dutch succeeded in keeping Zaire & Indonesia as colonies. But when German became stronger, England & France came together to fight a new power which was disturbing the old balance.   

Looking at history, we can say that India & China has existed very well & prospered. They were the world’s leading economy for most of the history till 18^th century. But the great Himalayas have played a big role in this. Never in history had Chinese central authority and a Pan Indian Govt. fought a war till 1962. But modern technology has changed everything. We have become a direct rival. We have tensions in boarder & we still feel that our 1962 loss was the lowest point in Indian Republic history. But the question remains – Can we both grow together? The answer is May be or may not be. It will depend on many factors. I will explain my assumption this in next parts of the series.