ISAS Insights

China and India have now travelled the proverbial extra mile towards each other to proclaim that a qualitatively new ‘Panchsheel’ spirit is attainable in their chequered relationship. When ‘Panchsheel’ – the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence – were enunciated by China and India, acting in concert in 1954, there was not much asymmetry between their respective national strengths. Today, while both China and India are nuclear-armed space powers, China overshadows India in a big way in the economic domain and is ahead in a number of aspects of military preparedness. It is this contrast in time and political space that brings the latest Sino-Indian Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) into the futurist focus. This aspect of the Sino-Indian summit held in Beijing on 23 October 2013 stands scrutiny as a sign of renewed statesmanship. But the hopeful sign must still pass the test of realpolitik until the two countries resolve their basic border dispute.