The dragon and the elephant
The dragon and the elephant By Ramesh Thakur / Special to The Daily Yomiuri On April 11, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a "strategic partnership for peace and prosperity" between the two most populous nations, which comprise one-third of the world's total population. The 11 agreements signed during the visit envisage galloping growth in trade, "political parameters and guiding principles" for resolving the long-running border dispute, joint petroleum, gas and space exploration, and enhanced confidence building measures among the military forces along the border. Exuding satisfaction, Wen declared China and India would be the "two pagodas" of economic power in the 21st century. Singh responded that stronger, deeper and broader relations between China and India would reshape the world order. Indeed. The futuristic report published last December by the U.S. National Intelligence Council famously compared the parallel emergence of China and India in the 21st century to the rise of Germany in the 19th and the United States in the 20th century, with potentially just as dramatic impacts on regional and world affairs. The Wen visit could mark a historic watershed in tipping the relations between the two ancient civilizations from hostility to friendship. The territorial dispute had led to a brief but intense war in 1962 that poisoned relations for three decades. It has taken over a decade of efforts, and several high-level visits in both directions, to come to the current friendly pass. The new guiding principles in effect ratify the status quo by requiring negotiators to respect historical evidence, practical difficulties, settled populations, national sentiments and each other's security concerns. Renouncing the use or threat of force, they call for "a package settlement" that "must be final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary." In a significant gesture of cartographic diplomacy, Wen presented a new map that finally acknowledges Sikkim as a state of India. New Delhi in turn reiterated respect for China's sovereignty over Tibet and promised to prevent anti-China political activities by the Tibetan exile community in India. China and India share concerns about the growth and spread of Islamist fundamentalism and extremism in the Central Asian region. China has invited India to liaise with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that seeks to stabilize Central Asia under joint Sino-Russian leadership. The most dramatic development is in the accelerating growth in trans-Himalayan trade. Of all the significant economies in the world, China and India have been the fastest growing for the past decade. Barely a few years ago, India-China trade was under 1 billion dollars per year. China has come from nowhere to be India's second biggest trade partner after the U.S. The two countries are aiming for a trade turnover of 20 billion dollars by 2008 and 30 billion dollars by 2010, up from 13.6 billion dollars at present. (India-U.S. trade is worth 19.8 billion dollars, but China-U.S. trade is 210 billion dollars.) The complementarity of the two economies is proving to be more exciting and enticing, for example Chinese hardware manufacturing and India's software expertise, than old anxieties about competition at each other's expense. This should be deeply worrying for Japan which is now India's ninth trading partner, behind the United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Singapore and Switzerland. Even South Korea is poised to overtake Japan. Considering the absence of historical conflict and animosity that act as irritants in Japan's relations with Beijing and Seoul, and the long-term security that India offers, the stagnation in bilateral India-Japan economic and trade relations is something of a puzzle. While Wen was toasting strengthening ties with India, anti-Japanese protests were gathering momentum in China, fueled in part by Beijing's opposition to Japan's bid for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council. In New Delhi, Wen seemed to give tacit and lukewarm support for India's parallel bid. If Japan and India maintain their so far impressive unity with Brazil and Germany for a collective admission to the United Nations' top table, they are likely to succeed. If they permit themselves to be seduced by separate promises that exploit the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule, they will all falter. In statements and speeches during the Wen visit, the two sides identified a number of areas and sectors for expanding trade and economic operation bilaterally, in third countries, and globally. Wen said he would like to see trade barriers removed and stronger cooperation in steel, oil, machinery and high-tech industries like space, maritime, information technology and new materials technology. He called for investments and joint ventures and infrastructure development. Indians could invest in China in IT, space technology and science and technology, while China could invest in biotechnology and computer and telecommunications hardware. The agreements call for the creation of a China-India regional trading arrangement and a financial dialogue mechanism to facilitate diversified economic operation. India will also be taking part in the East Asian Community meeting in December. Another vast untapped potential is the tourism sector, with the two-way flow numbering under a quarter million from a combined population base of two billion. Globally, the two sides agreed on the importance of an "open, fair, equitable and transparent rule-based multilateral trade system." They remain joint and effective champions for the interests of poor developing countries in global trade talks. Finally, there is a lesson in all this for India-Pakistan relations too. A bitter territorial dispute can be put aside as a problem left over from history while relations are built and consolidated on economic, trade, cultural and diplomatic fronts. Once these are substantial enough to act as a ballast to the bilateral relationship, the border dispute can be settled on the basis of the status quo with some mutual accommodation. The alternative is to hold the entire relationship hostage to an unresolvable border dispute that damages both countries to the delight of outside ill-wishers. The ups and downs of India's bilateral relations with its two most critical neighbors offer many lessons for the current crop of leaders in China, India and Pakistan. They can study these in order to build a mature relationship based on rationality and pragmatism, or ignore them in favor of emotional and mutually damaging accusations and countercharges. India and Pakistan, like India and China, cannot change their geography, but they can take charge of their own destiny. Might the recent wildly popular opening of a bus route across divided Kashmir, and the visit of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to India in connection with the cricket matches between the subcontinental rivals, herald a beautiful Kashmiri Spring