What to expect from relations between China and India in the 21st century? Over the past few decades, China and India have managed to push their disputes into the background in order to cooperate with each other. The two countries have established trade and economic relations; they have cooperated on issues like international trade and climate change and within multilateral institutions such as the G20. They have even started to work together on security, in particular to fight regional terrorism. These examples are good reasons to believe that China and India could extend their cooperation further. However, even though China and India have not gone to war since 1962, they have been embroiled in a territorial dispute over their border ever since. Border skirmishes continue to flare up, most alarmingly again at the Doklam pass during last summer. In addition, both countries compete with each other for natural resources in the region, for economic and political influence in South Asia, as well as within the maritime realm, namely in the Indian Ocean. China’s plans to establish a regional connectivity network via its grand New Silk Road (Belt and Road) initiative, which involves building several ports on the coasts of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh, has only fuelled tensions between India and China rather mitigating them. In light of the New Silk Road and in particular following the latest border standoff it appears that India and China are looking at a long-term confrontational development rather than a cooperative relationship.First come first serve – we have maximum space for 25 persons!
We invite Garima Mohan, Project manager at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) to discuss.
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Garima Mohan
Garima Mohan is a project manager at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin. She focuses on the foreign and security policy of rising powers, particularly that of India, and on UN peacekeeping and conflict management. Mohan’s current research is concentrated on Europe-India relations. She helps to head up the EU-India policy dialogues on global governance and security, a project jointly conducted by GPPi and Carnegie India and funded by the EU Delegation to India. Mohan is also a scientific coordinator for the EU’s Asia-Pacific Research and Advice Network, which supports EU policymakers on issues concerning the Asia-Pacific. She has published widely on a number of issues, including Indian foreign and security policy in Africa,connectivity projects in Asia, maritime security in the Indian Ocean, EU-India relations, and Germany-India ties. Garima holds a PhD in political science from the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies – a joint program of the Freie Universität Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance, and the Berlin Social Science Research Center. She also holds a master’s degree in global politics with distinction from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in history from St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi.
