China the World and India

The essays that comprise this volume represent the first serious effort by an Indian to explore the changing Chinese view of the world, its percep tion of India and the role India is likely to play in international politics. The title of this volume China the World and India conveys the idea that China has never situated its relations with In dia in a purely bilateral or even a regional con text. Instead. It has always envisaged a role for In dia against developments at the macro-level of in ternational politics, and China's periodic re-assess ment of the world balance power. This, the author says, would reveal the political reasons for and the complex nature of the friendship of the 1950's, as it would the confrontation of the 1960's.

After the unexpected border war of 1962 and the equally unforeseen humiliation on the battlefield. India seemed to cast China as its 'other' and em barked on a search for security that called for a special relationship with either or both of the su per powers.

In the late 60's and the 70's, when Moscow, as China's 'enemy no. 1'. acquired an enhanced pres ence in India, South Asia became the arena for the playing out of the Great Game between the two super powers and China. China, in turn, looked for a new 'friend' in South Asia, and found one in a willing Pakistan. China did not, however, cast India as its national 'other'. In 1971 India became. for the first time ever, a treaty ally of a super power. the Soviet Union. Thereafter, India seemed 'paraly sed', unable to even see the opportunities that in ternational change made available to it. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 ush ered in a world without blocs or alliances, where each state became a 'stand-alone' state.

Four decades after 1962, it must be apparent that for India as a 'stand-alone' state, the key to break ing out of its self entrapment in the limited con fines of South Asia, to once again become a re gional if not a global player, is China. And the key to that key, according to the author, is for India to finally overcome its 1962 trauma, and speed up both the normalisation of relations and the final settlement of the territorial problem.