Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
hardliners in the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA). Perhaps significantly, China's foreign
agency led its story with the tough line, headlined 'Patience needed to resolve boundary
question'.
4
The mood was strikingly different when China's next premier, Li Keqiang, visited India
in May 2013 and conducted a charm offensive, albeit just after a serious confrontation on
the border. Never once did he deflect from friendly and practical remarks about sowing 'the
seeds of friendship'. On the border, he said the two sides had 'agreed to push forward with
negotiations', which contrasted sharply with the line taken by Wen Jiabao. It is the Wen
Jiabao cameo, however, that goes to the heart of India's foreign policy dilemma, which
dates from its defeat by China in the 1962 war.
China has become the biggest foreign policy challenge facing India and the most bewil-
dering worry, not least because the entire 3,488 km (2,167 mile) border, called the Line of
Actual Control (LAC), is disputed and is not defined on the ground or on maps. (By con-
trast, most of the India-Pakistan Line of Control - LoC - is delineated and is accepted as a
temporary arrangement). China also weighs heavily on the Indian consciousness because of
1962, and it has a physical presence everywhere that India is or wants to be - ranging from
disputed mountains and valleys in the Himalayas to potentially insecure shipping lanes in
the South China Sea. China also controls the flow of river waters that India needs, and it
wields growing power across South Asia as well as influence in the UN and other interna-
tional forums where India is represented.
This potentially explosive range of differences is partially offset by growing trade and
economic links, which have boomed in recent years so that China has become India's
Together, the two countries now account for 40 per cent of the world's population and their
rivalry has grown as they have emerged from past constraints - China from the Cultural
Revolution of the late-1960s, and India from British colonialism and subsequent central-
ized economic controls.
There is intense competition for oil and other energy and natural resources in Asia,
Africa, the Gulf and South America. With an economy that has grown nearly ten-fold in 30
years, China is far ahead of India. Its GDP is already four times larger and some forecasts
say it will overtake America by 2017. It has enormously greater involvement in internation-
al investment, trading and financial markets than India. Its military budget is almost three
times larger and its armed forces are much better equipped, while its physical infrastruc-
ture, especially highways, is far more advanced. It has become the world's second largest
oil importer after the US, taking roughly 5.5m barrels per day (BPD), while India at num-
ber four imports approximately 2.3m BPD.
