Non-Subscriber Extract
Borderline friends - Sino-Indian ties warily improve
07 December 2007
India and China are to participate in a joint military exercise in December for the first time in their histories. The exercise, set up during Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pranab Mukherjee's visit to China in 2006, reflects attempts by both sides to improve what has historically been a fractious relationship.
The exercise is the latest in a series of initiatives that demonstrate the superficially improved bilateral relations. However, as is to be expected from two neighbouring nuclear countries with a history of antagonism, suspicions remain and, therefore, significant developments in the relationship will be slow to occur. The small scale of the December exercises, with only 100 troops from each country participating in China's Yunnan province, is indicative of the still wary relationship.
The easing tension has been most clear in the field of border disputes, which have been the cause of perennial difficulties. China's 1950 occupation of Tibet brought it directly onto India's Himalayan frontier and the two fought a brief border war in 1962, which has never formally been settled. China claims a large part of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as an aspect of its Tibetan heritage and, for many years, disputed the status of India's state of Sikkim, an independent kingdom until 1975. Other disputes include Aksai Chin in the former princely state of Kashmir, currently occupied by China and not recognised by New Delhi.
Recently, some progress has been made in these previously intractable matters. Most strikingly, in 2005, China tacitly dropped its claims to Sikkim and agreed to a cross-border trade route through the Nathu La pass - thereby recognising that a frontier did exist between them. The prospect of renewed war in the high Himalayas, which has never entirely disappeared since 1962, now seems extremely remote.
While border disputes have been the most high-profile area for improvement in relations, the motivation for this improvement lies in commerce. Trade has been growing rapidly - at more than 30 per cent each year for the last five years - and shortly will exceed USD30 billion. On present trends, China will be India's largest single trade partner by 2010.