India - China | International Relations for UPSC 2024 (Pre & Mains) PDF Download

 Page 1


 
India-China 
Historical Backdrop 
•
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent nation states in the late 1940s, India’s 
relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes 
•
It took almost three decades after the 1962 con?ict for this relationship to start acquiring a more 
comprehensive and multi-dimensional character 
?Signi?cant hurdles have marred the process towards normalisation, namely, the issue of Tibet, the 
China-Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, and the role of major powers 
?Since the 1990s, the increasing power asymmetry and economic gap—by 2013, China’s GDP had 
become four times larger than that of India—has further complicated India’s engagement with 
China  
•
The rise of China—as well as slower emergence of India—has contributed to an increasing signi?cance of 
their relationship for each other 
Post-Independence 
•
The new nation states were bold and ambitious in seeking to change the course of Asia and international 
relations 
•
In the ideologically carved bipolar world order of the time, whilst the PRC was unambiguously aligned 
with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, India opted to follow a policy of non-alignment 
•Indian and Chinese historical experience and common concerns, Nehru believed, called for a policy of 
friendship and cooperation—any other approach would only lead to confrontation and draw hostile lines 
across Asia. He was also convinced that given the possibility of superpower intervention, China would 
never attack India 
?India thus became the ?rst Asian non-communist country to recognise the new regime in China and 
has consistently upheld the ‘one-China’ policy  
•
Crux of PRC’s problem with Nehru and the nature of political leadership in India, was unquestionably 
about Tibet 
?Subsequently India’s role and diplomacy in the 1950–3 Korean War (which directly contributed to 
the PRC being invited to the Geneva peace talks), and the nationalistic upsurge in the Afro-Asian 
world during the 1950s, led to a change in the Chinese evaluation of the non-aligned countries and 
brought the desired break in India–China relations 
?The ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and China relating to Tibet’ signed on the 
occasion, incorporated the Panchsheel—the Five Principles of Peaceful Cooperation—which can be 
seen as the ?rst joint political contribution of India and China to contemporary foreign policy 
semantics 
? With the signing of Panchsheel India formally renounced its traditional privileges and position in 
Tibet, which it inherited from the British 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 2


 
India-China 
Historical Backdrop 
•
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent nation states in the late 1940s, India’s 
relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes 
•
It took almost three decades after the 1962 con?ict for this relationship to start acquiring a more 
comprehensive and multi-dimensional character 
?Signi?cant hurdles have marred the process towards normalisation, namely, the issue of Tibet, the 
China-Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, and the role of major powers 
?Since the 1990s, the increasing power asymmetry and economic gap—by 2013, China’s GDP had 
become four times larger than that of India—has further complicated India’s engagement with 
China  
•
The rise of China—as well as slower emergence of India—has contributed to an increasing signi?cance of 
their relationship for each other 
Post-Independence 
•
The new nation states were bold and ambitious in seeking to change the course of Asia and international 
relations 
•
In the ideologically carved bipolar world order of the time, whilst the PRC was unambiguously aligned 
with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, India opted to follow a policy of non-alignment 
•Indian and Chinese historical experience and common concerns, Nehru believed, called for a policy of 
friendship and cooperation—any other approach would only lead to confrontation and draw hostile lines 
across Asia. He was also convinced that given the possibility of superpower intervention, China would 
never attack India 
?India thus became the ?rst Asian non-communist country to recognise the new regime in China and 
has consistently upheld the ‘one-China’ policy  
•
Crux of PRC’s problem with Nehru and the nature of political leadership in India, was unquestionably 
about Tibet 
?Subsequently India’s role and diplomacy in the 1950–3 Korean War (which directly contributed to 
the PRC being invited to the Geneva peace talks), and the nationalistic upsurge in the Afro-Asian 
world during the 1950s, led to a change in the Chinese evaluation of the non-aligned countries and 
brought the desired break in India–China relations 
?The ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and China relating to Tibet’ signed on the 
occasion, incorporated the Panchsheel—the Five Principles of Peaceful Cooperation—which can be 
seen as the ?rst joint political contribution of India and China to contemporary foreign policy 
semantics 
? With the signing of Panchsheel India formally renounced its traditional privileges and position in 
Tibet, which it inherited from the British 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•When the Dalai Lama sought and obtained political asylum in India in the wake of the Tibetan uprising in 
1959, India–China relations were stretched to breaking point, especially with the establishment of the 
Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala 
Post 1962 War 
•
The sterile hiatus following the war could be best described as a situation of ‘cold peace if not cold war’ . 
The post-1962 period also saw the PRC readjusting its policy vis-à-vis the Indian subcontinent, which 
was essentially aimed at establishing a special relationship with Pakistan 
?The Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 provided the opportunity for the Chinese to show their 
solidarity with Pakistan—not only did they supply military equipment but they also threatened to 
open another front on the Sikkim border 
•The 1960s was also the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, when the 
domination of ultra-left factions led the Communist Party of China to ‘export revolution’ by intervening 
in the domestic politics of various states, including India  
•China also supported self-determination for the people of J&K and backed insurgencies in the north-east 
and the Maoist movements in India 
•PRC signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and India began moving closer to the 
Soviet Union, with a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation in 1971 in the shadow of Bangladesh 
crisis 
•The Janta government did make attempts to reach out to China, which was emerging from the shadows 
of the Cultural Revolution  
?The then foreign minister A.B. Vajpayee paid a visit to China in 1979 
•
Trade was of?cially resumed in 1978 and the Most Favoured Nation Agreement was signed in 1984 
Normalisation 
•An important intervention came from Deng Xiaoping in 1980, when he outlined a proposal that 
subsequently came to be known as the ‘package deal’ 
?Indian leadership did not respond to this offer 
•
1986, one of the most threatening face-offs since 1962 took place between the military forces of India 
and China at Sumdurong Chu in the eastern sector 
•Indian Parliament in 1987 granted full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh  
•
After PM Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988, the shift in relations took place from a sequential (normalisation 
after resolving dispute) to a simultaneous approach 
Pokhran II and After 
•
If the 1962 con?ict constituted the watershed in terms of taking Sino-India relations to from one 
extreme to the other, the nuclear explosions of May 1998 can be seen in comparative terms 
•
The decade of developments preceding the tests stood up to the sharp exchanges in the immediate 
aftermath  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 3


 
India-China 
Historical Backdrop 
•
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent nation states in the late 1940s, India’s 
relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes 
•
It took almost three decades after the 1962 con?ict for this relationship to start acquiring a more 
comprehensive and multi-dimensional character 
?Signi?cant hurdles have marred the process towards normalisation, namely, the issue of Tibet, the 
China-Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, and the role of major powers 
?Since the 1990s, the increasing power asymmetry and economic gap—by 2013, China’s GDP had 
become four times larger than that of India—has further complicated India’s engagement with 
China  
•
The rise of China—as well as slower emergence of India—has contributed to an increasing signi?cance of 
their relationship for each other 
Post-Independence 
•
The new nation states were bold and ambitious in seeking to change the course of Asia and international 
relations 
•
In the ideologically carved bipolar world order of the time, whilst the PRC was unambiguously aligned 
with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, India opted to follow a policy of non-alignment 
•Indian and Chinese historical experience and common concerns, Nehru believed, called for a policy of 
friendship and cooperation—any other approach would only lead to confrontation and draw hostile lines 
across Asia. He was also convinced that given the possibility of superpower intervention, China would 
never attack India 
?India thus became the ?rst Asian non-communist country to recognise the new regime in China and 
has consistently upheld the ‘one-China’ policy  
•
Crux of PRC’s problem with Nehru and the nature of political leadership in India, was unquestionably 
about Tibet 
?Subsequently India’s role and diplomacy in the 1950–3 Korean War (which directly contributed to 
the PRC being invited to the Geneva peace talks), and the nationalistic upsurge in the Afro-Asian 
world during the 1950s, led to a change in the Chinese evaluation of the non-aligned countries and 
brought the desired break in India–China relations 
?The ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and China relating to Tibet’ signed on the 
occasion, incorporated the Panchsheel—the Five Principles of Peaceful Cooperation—which can be 
seen as the ?rst joint political contribution of India and China to contemporary foreign policy 
semantics 
? With the signing of Panchsheel India formally renounced its traditional privileges and position in 
Tibet, which it inherited from the British 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•When the Dalai Lama sought and obtained political asylum in India in the wake of the Tibetan uprising in 
1959, India–China relations were stretched to breaking point, especially with the establishment of the 
Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala 
Post 1962 War 
•
The sterile hiatus following the war could be best described as a situation of ‘cold peace if not cold war’ . 
The post-1962 period also saw the PRC readjusting its policy vis-à-vis the Indian subcontinent, which 
was essentially aimed at establishing a special relationship with Pakistan 
?The Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 provided the opportunity for the Chinese to show their 
solidarity with Pakistan—not only did they supply military equipment but they also threatened to 
open another front on the Sikkim border 
•The 1960s was also the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, when the 
domination of ultra-left factions led the Communist Party of China to ‘export revolution’ by intervening 
in the domestic politics of various states, including India  
•China also supported self-determination for the people of J&K and backed insurgencies in the north-east 
and the Maoist movements in India 
•PRC signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and India began moving closer to the 
Soviet Union, with a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation in 1971 in the shadow of Bangladesh 
crisis 
•The Janta government did make attempts to reach out to China, which was emerging from the shadows 
of the Cultural Revolution  
?The then foreign minister A.B. Vajpayee paid a visit to China in 1979 
•
Trade was of?cially resumed in 1978 and the Most Favoured Nation Agreement was signed in 1984 
Normalisation 
•An important intervention came from Deng Xiaoping in 1980, when he outlined a proposal that 
subsequently came to be known as the ‘package deal’ 
?Indian leadership did not respond to this offer 
•
1986, one of the most threatening face-offs since 1962 took place between the military forces of India 
and China at Sumdurong Chu in the eastern sector 
•Indian Parliament in 1987 granted full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh  
•
After PM Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988, the shift in relations took place from a sequential (normalisation 
after resolving dispute) to a simultaneous approach 
Pokhran II and After 
•
If the 1962 con?ict constituted the watershed in terms of taking Sino-India relations to from one 
extreme to the other, the nuclear explosions of May 1998 can be seen in comparative terms 
•
The decade of developments preceding the tests stood up to the sharp exchanges in the immediate 
aftermath  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
?Conciliatory statements at the highest levels in India and a visit by the then Indian External Affairs 
Minister Jaswant Singh to China brought the ties back on track 
?The Chinese reassurance to him about their desire to stay neutral in the Indo-Pak con?ict in Kargil, 
upheld the shift in the PRC’s South Asia policy, underway since the mid-1990s 
?A second signi?cant indication of the developing maturity of the relationship was the fact that when 
the Karmapa Lama escaped into India in 2000, it did not stall or disrupt the momentum towards 
improvement  
•
In hindsight, the letter of the then PM Vajpayee to the US President, citing China as the reason for the 
tests appeared to irk the Chinese more 
Convergence 
Historical 
•History of peaceful coexistence 
•
Mutually enriching cultural and economic interactions ‘across the Himalayan gap’ over the centuries 
•
Sense of ‘ageless brotherhood’ 
•Civilisational encounters, when Buddhism travelled from India to China, along with a rich consignment of 
ideas, texts and values 
?Names of Fa Xian, Xuan Zhang and Kumarajiva are legendary in this account of cross-fertilisation 
•
There is history of two economically powerful and prosperous empires during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, dominating world trade and ?ourishing and dynamic trade routes criss-crossing 
their frontier region and constituting the hub of international relations at the time 
•
There is yet another tapestry of interaction between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, when 
these two great civilisations and proud empires were humbled, and bled white by Western imperialist 
dominance  
?Shared perspectives on imperialism were also seen in the interaction between the Indian delegation 
led by Nehru and the Chinese delegation at the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels in 
1927 
Culture 
•
India-China cultural exchanges date back to many centuries and there is some evidence that conceptual 
and linguistic exchanges existed in 1500-1000 B.C. between the Shang-Zhou civilization and the ancient 
Vedic civilisation 
•
Indian Bollywood movies were popular in China in the 1960s and 1970s and the popularity is being 
rekindled in recent times again. India and China have entered into an agreement on co-production of 
movies, the ?rst of which based on the life of the monk Xuan Zang hit the theaters in 2016 
•
Yoga is becoming increasingly popular in China. China was one of the co-sponsors to the UN resolution 
designating June 21 as the International Day of Yoga 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 4


 
India-China 
Historical Backdrop 
•
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent nation states in the late 1940s, India’s 
relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes 
•
It took almost three decades after the 1962 con?ict for this relationship to start acquiring a more 
comprehensive and multi-dimensional character 
?Signi?cant hurdles have marred the process towards normalisation, namely, the issue of Tibet, the 
China-Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, and the role of major powers 
?Since the 1990s, the increasing power asymmetry and economic gap—by 2013, China’s GDP had 
become four times larger than that of India—has further complicated India’s engagement with 
China  
•
The rise of China—as well as slower emergence of India—has contributed to an increasing signi?cance of 
their relationship for each other 
Post-Independence 
•
The new nation states were bold and ambitious in seeking to change the course of Asia and international 
relations 
•
In the ideologically carved bipolar world order of the time, whilst the PRC was unambiguously aligned 
with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, India opted to follow a policy of non-alignment 
•Indian and Chinese historical experience and common concerns, Nehru believed, called for a policy of 
friendship and cooperation—any other approach would only lead to confrontation and draw hostile lines 
across Asia. He was also convinced that given the possibility of superpower intervention, China would 
never attack India 
?India thus became the ?rst Asian non-communist country to recognise the new regime in China and 
has consistently upheld the ‘one-China’ policy  
•
Crux of PRC’s problem with Nehru and the nature of political leadership in India, was unquestionably 
about Tibet 
?Subsequently India’s role and diplomacy in the 1950–3 Korean War (which directly contributed to 
the PRC being invited to the Geneva peace talks), and the nationalistic upsurge in the Afro-Asian 
world during the 1950s, led to a change in the Chinese evaluation of the non-aligned countries and 
brought the desired break in India–China relations 
?The ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and China relating to Tibet’ signed on the 
occasion, incorporated the Panchsheel—the Five Principles of Peaceful Cooperation—which can be 
seen as the ?rst joint political contribution of India and China to contemporary foreign policy 
semantics 
? With the signing of Panchsheel India formally renounced its traditional privileges and position in 
Tibet, which it inherited from the British 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•When the Dalai Lama sought and obtained political asylum in India in the wake of the Tibetan uprising in 
1959, India–China relations were stretched to breaking point, especially with the establishment of the 
Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala 
Post 1962 War 
•
The sterile hiatus following the war could be best described as a situation of ‘cold peace if not cold war’ . 
The post-1962 period also saw the PRC readjusting its policy vis-à-vis the Indian subcontinent, which 
was essentially aimed at establishing a special relationship with Pakistan 
?The Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 provided the opportunity for the Chinese to show their 
solidarity with Pakistan—not only did they supply military equipment but they also threatened to 
open another front on the Sikkim border 
•The 1960s was also the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, when the 
domination of ultra-left factions led the Communist Party of China to ‘export revolution’ by intervening 
in the domestic politics of various states, including India  
•China also supported self-determination for the people of J&K and backed insurgencies in the north-east 
and the Maoist movements in India 
•PRC signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and India began moving closer to the 
Soviet Union, with a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation in 1971 in the shadow of Bangladesh 
crisis 
•The Janta government did make attempts to reach out to China, which was emerging from the shadows 
of the Cultural Revolution  
?The then foreign minister A.B. Vajpayee paid a visit to China in 1979 
•
Trade was of?cially resumed in 1978 and the Most Favoured Nation Agreement was signed in 1984 
Normalisation 
•An important intervention came from Deng Xiaoping in 1980, when he outlined a proposal that 
subsequently came to be known as the ‘package deal’ 
?Indian leadership did not respond to this offer 
•
1986, one of the most threatening face-offs since 1962 took place between the military forces of India 
and China at Sumdurong Chu in the eastern sector 
•Indian Parliament in 1987 granted full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh  
•
After PM Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988, the shift in relations took place from a sequential (normalisation 
after resolving dispute) to a simultaneous approach 
Pokhran II and After 
•
If the 1962 con?ict constituted the watershed in terms of taking Sino-India relations to from one 
extreme to the other, the nuclear explosions of May 1998 can be seen in comparative terms 
•
The decade of developments preceding the tests stood up to the sharp exchanges in the immediate 
aftermath  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
?Conciliatory statements at the highest levels in India and a visit by the then Indian External Affairs 
Minister Jaswant Singh to China brought the ties back on track 
?The Chinese reassurance to him about their desire to stay neutral in the Indo-Pak con?ict in Kargil, 
upheld the shift in the PRC’s South Asia policy, underway since the mid-1990s 
?A second signi?cant indication of the developing maturity of the relationship was the fact that when 
the Karmapa Lama escaped into India in 2000, it did not stall or disrupt the momentum towards 
improvement  
•
In hindsight, the letter of the then PM Vajpayee to the US President, citing China as the reason for the 
tests appeared to irk the Chinese more 
Convergence 
Historical 
•History of peaceful coexistence 
•
Mutually enriching cultural and economic interactions ‘across the Himalayan gap’ over the centuries 
•
Sense of ‘ageless brotherhood’ 
•Civilisational encounters, when Buddhism travelled from India to China, along with a rich consignment of 
ideas, texts and values 
?Names of Fa Xian, Xuan Zhang and Kumarajiva are legendary in this account of cross-fertilisation 
•
There is history of two economically powerful and prosperous empires during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, dominating world trade and ?ourishing and dynamic trade routes criss-crossing 
their frontier region and constituting the hub of international relations at the time 
•
There is yet another tapestry of interaction between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, when 
these two great civilisations and proud empires were humbled, and bled white by Western imperialist 
dominance  
?Shared perspectives on imperialism were also seen in the interaction between the Indian delegation 
led by Nehru and the Chinese delegation at the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels in 
1927 
Culture 
•
India-China cultural exchanges date back to many centuries and there is some evidence that conceptual 
and linguistic exchanges existed in 1500-1000 B.C. between the Shang-Zhou civilization and the ancient 
Vedic civilisation 
•
Indian Bollywood movies were popular in China in the 1960s and 1970s and the popularity is being 
rekindled in recent times again. India and China have entered into an agreement on co-production of 
movies, the ?rst of which based on the life of the monk Xuan Zang hit the theaters in 2016 
•
Yoga is becoming increasingly popular in China. China was one of the co-sponsors to the UN resolution 
designating June 21 as the International Day of Yoga 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
Economic 
•
India-China trade in goods was the world’s fastest-growing trade during 2000-12, surpassing in 2009, 
India’s trade with its then largest trading partner, the US 
•The proposed Free Trade Area (FTA), putting together the markets of two of the most populous nations 
in the world would be even bigger than the current FTAs such as EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, APEC etc. 
Economic 
•
Statistics reveal that India and China carry out bilateral trade of $85 billion  
•
The participation of India and China in mega-blocs is also imperative for understanding the evolution of 
bilateral relations. Both countries are looking forward to an early conclusion of the Regional 
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Both sides view RCEP as a rule-based agreement capable 
of deterring protectionist tendencies and trade war escalation 
T errorism 
•
China decided to drop its objection to the UN listing Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a 
global terrorist  
?A UNSC designation will subject Azhar to an assets freeze, travel ban and an arms embargo  
Energy 
•
A key area which still needs more policy attention from both sides is the unconventional energy sector, 
as the hydrocarbon dependence of both countries is very high. Shale gas, coalbed methane and natural 
gas hydrates are now revolutionising the energy security discourse 
?In China shale gas is found in the basins of T arain, Tuha, Sichuan and Ordos, while in India there are 
shale gas deposits in Krishna, Godavari and Cauvery basins. Currently, both countries are looking 
for collaboration with other countries for harnessing their unconventional energy potential. It 
would be a win-win situation if India and China look at each other to address systematic gaps, 
develop regional storage hubs, and secure mutual cost advantages 
Organisations 
•RIC: The RIC countries occupy over 19 percent of the global landmass and contribute to over 33 percent 
of global GDP . All three are nuclear powers and two, Russia and China, are permanent members of the 
UN Security Council, while India aspires to be one. Moreover, the RIC forms the core of both the 
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the BRICS 
•
Both the countries regularly meet in various summits on regional and global forums such as BRICS, SCO, 
G20 etc. 
Irritants 
Political 
•
China also has complained bitterly for decades over India’s accepting the Dalai Lama as a refugee in 
1959. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has kept his headquarters in northern India since ?eeing 
Chinese-ruled Tibet 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 5


 
India-China 
Historical Backdrop 
•
For almost 50 years after their emergence as independent nation states in the late 1940s, India’s 
relationship with China had a highly uneven trajectory, marked by extreme vicissitudes 
•
It took almost three decades after the 1962 con?ict for this relationship to start acquiring a more 
comprehensive and multi-dimensional character 
?Signi?cant hurdles have marred the process towards normalisation, namely, the issue of Tibet, the 
China-Pakistan alliance, the contested boundary, and the role of major powers 
?Since the 1990s, the increasing power asymmetry and economic gap—by 2013, China’s GDP had 
become four times larger than that of India—has further complicated India’s engagement with 
China  
•
The rise of China—as well as slower emergence of India—has contributed to an increasing signi?cance of 
their relationship for each other 
Post-Independence 
•
The new nation states were bold and ambitious in seeking to change the course of Asia and international 
relations 
•
In the ideologically carved bipolar world order of the time, whilst the PRC was unambiguously aligned 
with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, India opted to follow a policy of non-alignment 
•Indian and Chinese historical experience and common concerns, Nehru believed, called for a policy of 
friendship and cooperation—any other approach would only lead to confrontation and draw hostile lines 
across Asia. He was also convinced that given the possibility of superpower intervention, China would 
never attack India 
?India thus became the ?rst Asian non-communist country to recognise the new regime in China and 
has consistently upheld the ‘one-China’ policy  
•
Crux of PRC’s problem with Nehru and the nature of political leadership in India, was unquestionably 
about Tibet 
?Subsequently India’s role and diplomacy in the 1950–3 Korean War (which directly contributed to 
the PRC being invited to the Geneva peace talks), and the nationalistic upsurge in the Afro-Asian 
world during the 1950s, led to a change in the Chinese evaluation of the non-aligned countries and 
brought the desired break in India–China relations 
?The ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and China relating to Tibet’ signed on the 
occasion, incorporated the Panchsheel—the Five Principles of Peaceful Cooperation—which can be 
seen as the ?rst joint political contribution of India and China to contemporary foreign policy 
semantics 
? With the signing of Panchsheel India formally renounced its traditional privileges and position in 
Tibet, which it inherited from the British 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•When the Dalai Lama sought and obtained political asylum in India in the wake of the Tibetan uprising in 
1959, India–China relations were stretched to breaking point, especially with the establishment of the 
Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala 
Post 1962 War 
•
The sterile hiatus following the war could be best described as a situation of ‘cold peace if not cold war’ . 
The post-1962 period also saw the PRC readjusting its policy vis-à-vis the Indian subcontinent, which 
was essentially aimed at establishing a special relationship with Pakistan 
?The Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 provided the opportunity for the Chinese to show their 
solidarity with Pakistan—not only did they supply military equipment but they also threatened to 
open another front on the Sikkim border 
•The 1960s was also the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, when the 
domination of ultra-left factions led the Communist Party of China to ‘export revolution’ by intervening 
in the domestic politics of various states, including India  
•China also supported self-determination for the people of J&K and backed insurgencies in the north-east 
and the Maoist movements in India 
•PRC signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and India began moving closer to the 
Soviet Union, with a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation in 1971 in the shadow of Bangladesh 
crisis 
•The Janta government did make attempts to reach out to China, which was emerging from the shadows 
of the Cultural Revolution  
?The then foreign minister A.B. Vajpayee paid a visit to China in 1979 
•
Trade was of?cially resumed in 1978 and the Most Favoured Nation Agreement was signed in 1984 
Normalisation 
•An important intervention came from Deng Xiaoping in 1980, when he outlined a proposal that 
subsequently came to be known as the ‘package deal’ 
?Indian leadership did not respond to this offer 
•
1986, one of the most threatening face-offs since 1962 took place between the military forces of India 
and China at Sumdurong Chu in the eastern sector 
•Indian Parliament in 1987 granted full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh  
•
After PM Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988, the shift in relations took place from a sequential (normalisation 
after resolving dispute) to a simultaneous approach 
Pokhran II and After 
•
If the 1962 con?ict constituted the watershed in terms of taking Sino-India relations to from one 
extreme to the other, the nuclear explosions of May 1998 can be seen in comparative terms 
•
The decade of developments preceding the tests stood up to the sharp exchanges in the immediate 
aftermath  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
?Conciliatory statements at the highest levels in India and a visit by the then Indian External Affairs 
Minister Jaswant Singh to China brought the ties back on track 
?The Chinese reassurance to him about their desire to stay neutral in the Indo-Pak con?ict in Kargil, 
upheld the shift in the PRC’s South Asia policy, underway since the mid-1990s 
?A second signi?cant indication of the developing maturity of the relationship was the fact that when 
the Karmapa Lama escaped into India in 2000, it did not stall or disrupt the momentum towards 
improvement  
•
In hindsight, the letter of the then PM Vajpayee to the US President, citing China as the reason for the 
tests appeared to irk the Chinese more 
Convergence 
Historical 
•History of peaceful coexistence 
•
Mutually enriching cultural and economic interactions ‘across the Himalayan gap’ over the centuries 
•
Sense of ‘ageless brotherhood’ 
•Civilisational encounters, when Buddhism travelled from India to China, along with a rich consignment of 
ideas, texts and values 
?Names of Fa Xian, Xuan Zhang and Kumarajiva are legendary in this account of cross-fertilisation 
•
There is history of two economically powerful and prosperous empires during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, dominating world trade and ?ourishing and dynamic trade routes criss-crossing 
their frontier region and constituting the hub of international relations at the time 
•
There is yet another tapestry of interaction between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, when 
these two great civilisations and proud empires were humbled, and bled white by Western imperialist 
dominance  
?Shared perspectives on imperialism were also seen in the interaction between the Indian delegation 
led by Nehru and the Chinese delegation at the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels in 
1927 
Culture 
•
India-China cultural exchanges date back to many centuries and there is some evidence that conceptual 
and linguistic exchanges existed in 1500-1000 B.C. between the Shang-Zhou civilization and the ancient 
Vedic civilisation 
•
Indian Bollywood movies were popular in China in the 1960s and 1970s and the popularity is being 
rekindled in recent times again. India and China have entered into an agreement on co-production of 
movies, the ?rst of which based on the life of the monk Xuan Zang hit the theaters in 2016 
•
Yoga is becoming increasingly popular in China. China was one of the co-sponsors to the UN resolution 
designating June 21 as the International Day of Yoga 
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Economic 
•
India-China trade in goods was the world’s fastest-growing trade during 2000-12, surpassing in 2009, 
India’s trade with its then largest trading partner, the US 
•The proposed Free Trade Area (FTA), putting together the markets of two of the most populous nations 
in the world would be even bigger than the current FTAs such as EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, APEC etc. 
Economic 
•
Statistics reveal that India and China carry out bilateral trade of $85 billion  
•
The participation of India and China in mega-blocs is also imperative for understanding the evolution of 
bilateral relations. Both countries are looking forward to an early conclusion of the Regional 
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Both sides view RCEP as a rule-based agreement capable 
of deterring protectionist tendencies and trade war escalation 
T errorism 
•
China decided to drop its objection to the UN listing Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a 
global terrorist  
?A UNSC designation will subject Azhar to an assets freeze, travel ban and an arms embargo  
Energy 
•
A key area which still needs more policy attention from both sides is the unconventional energy sector, 
as the hydrocarbon dependence of both countries is very high. Shale gas, coalbed methane and natural 
gas hydrates are now revolutionising the energy security discourse 
?In China shale gas is found in the basins of T arain, Tuha, Sichuan and Ordos, while in India there are 
shale gas deposits in Krishna, Godavari and Cauvery basins. Currently, both countries are looking 
for collaboration with other countries for harnessing their unconventional energy potential. It 
would be a win-win situation if India and China look at each other to address systematic gaps, 
develop regional storage hubs, and secure mutual cost advantages 
Organisations 
•RIC: The RIC countries occupy over 19 percent of the global landmass and contribute to over 33 percent 
of global GDP . All three are nuclear powers and two, Russia and China, are permanent members of the 
UN Security Council, while India aspires to be one. Moreover, the RIC forms the core of both the 
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the BRICS 
•
Both the countries regularly meet in various summits on regional and global forums such as BRICS, SCO, 
G20 etc. 
Irritants 
Political 
•
China also has complained bitterly for decades over India’s accepting the Dalai Lama as a refugee in 
1959. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has kept his headquarters in northern India since ?eeing 
Chinese-ruled Tibet 
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Economic 
•
Product composition: The Indian export basket is still extremely limited, comprising mostly primary 
products, and since 2005-6, we see a continuous and rising trade de?cit in favour of China  
?India has continuously demanded that China give greater market access to Indian Pharma and IT 
sectors 
•Hitherto, security concerns have limited the possibilities of Chinese investment, though the extent of 
Chinese presence and operations has been described in a recent publication as ‘Asia’s best-kept secret’ 
•
Few would contest that Indian infrastructure, as also its manufacturing sector, are the biggest stumbling 
blocks in its growth story—a clear strategy has to be framed soonest, for bringing in Chinese investment 
and the undoubted expertise of the Chinese ?rms and corporations, taking on board concerns about 
training Indian labour and the setting up of production bases 
•
China, meanwhile, has been frustrated with India’s refusal to sign onto a massive effort to build railways, 
ports and roads reaching from Asia to Europe and the Middle East. The project includes a China-Pakistan 
economic development programme aimed at absorbing as much as $46 billion in investment, most of it 
from Chinese banks 
•The non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are a cause of concern. The Indian scholars raised the issue of NTBs 
imposed by China on Indian goods. These NTBs pertain to stringent rules on product certi?cation and 
labelling standards; delays in customs clearances; and even restrictions related to port operations for re-
exporters 
T erritorial Imperative 
•There is a justiciable satisfaction that since the 1993 and 1996 Agreements, the border has been entirely 
peaceful. Changing the de facto status quo into a de jure boundary could have sorted the matter (the 
Deng ‘package deal’) 
?But the Chinese claims to Arunachal Pradesh goes counter to the 2005 Guidelines agreeing to 
respect populated areas 
•The lack of clarity regarding the alignment of the Line of Control has led to a rising number of 
transgressions over the past few years 
?These have in turn led to a useful—and necessary—array of mechanisms: ?ag meetings, border 
personnel meetings, hotlines between commanders, and from 2014, it was clear that the approach 
had shifted from arriving at a speedy settlement to border management, with the signing of a 
Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 
?A strategic dialogue, a defence dialogue, and joint military exercises have also been added to the 
bilateral pro?le. And yet, the transgressions—which occur very frequently—vitiate the atmosphere, 
adding grist to the mill of con?ictual scenarios 
•
Beijing’s practice of stapling visas on the passports of Indian citizens from Kashmir or Arunachal Pradesh 
is a further source of exasperation and strong of?cial protests are lodged 
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