Thus a review of the bilateral relationship would suggest that China had adopted a strategy wherein its own interests were being advanced by either stoking or aggravating India’s anxieties. This may have been tactically successful — but only to a limited extent — as the current turbulence in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan and the global concern about religious radicalism and non-state actors acquiring WMD indicate. The big shift that would restore abiding trust in the brittle Sino-Indian bilateral lies in the ability of the current Chinese leadership to minimise if not remove the anti-India orientation in its policies and nurture their common aspirations and interests.

India will not attain equivalence with China in the near future on any determinant that should cause concern for Beijing — but it is in the latter’s objective interest to arrive at equitable mutuality in the relationship. The alternative is a testy bilateral relationship between the two Asian giants, which will detract from China’s ‘peaceful’ rise to global power status. The elephant and the dragon do not share a similar DNA but can contribute to a balanced eco-system that is differently described as multi-polarity and the Asian century.

The writer is a security analyst cudayb@gmail.com