By Mohamed Zeeshan
Perhaps, if they begin to focus on the economics rather than the geopolitics.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit China in May in what will be a significant foreign policy event for New Delhi. Modi will be seeking a solution to the nagging boundary dispute between the two countries and geopolitics should dominate the prime minister’s itinerary. Tensions have long clouded relations between the two Asian powerhouses, but they need not dominate Modi’s visit. If India and China want to find a way to collaborate, the answer may well lie in economics.
Over the last few decades, relations between Beijing and New Delhi have run hot and cold. Border disputes have held them back, but the two countries have often managed to find common ground on economic issues. While China’s Maritime Silk Road has made news in India for all the wrong reasons, New Delhi itself has yet to explicitly and officially oppose the concept. In fact, many of China’s grand economic initiatives have come in collaboration with India. Both are founding members of the proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, for example, and both established the BRICS Development Bank last year. While India has often clashed with the United States in the World Trade Organization, India and China frequently find each other on the same side in the WTO, asking for the same things, from the right to export steel to America without discrimination, to allowing developing countries to maintain a larger food stockpile. Even on climate change, India and China hold fort together, asking the industrialized world to allow them greater leeway and calling for the easy transfer of green technology.
This collaboration is quite natural. Whatever their disagreements on power politics, Beijing and New Delhi together represent nearly one-third of mankind, and share several similar economic problems. To many in the developing world, regardless of their political leanings, India and China represent the economic rights of poorer, emerging economies on the world stage, thereby making Beijing and New Delhi the natural leaders of the developing world.
Read the full story at The Diplomat