China and India need to work to make sure that the flashpoints in their inevitably prickly relationship are handled quickly. Good relations between the two giants of Asia are impossible as they are both rivals for the top position, but also essential as too much in the region depends on the two states getting on well. The world’s two most populous countries are trade rivals, yet have large amounts of mutually profitable trade. They are geo-political rivals, yet they want to work together to build a more peaceful framework for all Asian relations.
Disputes along the 4,000-km border are one of the most sensitive parts of their relationship. Vague demarcation and occasional incursions can have very wide-ranging consequences and it was dangerous that Chinese troops lingered on for more than three weeks, well inside Indian territory in the eastern Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir, adjacent to the Chinese-occupied Aksai Chin area.
The Chinese withdrawal was important so that the incursion did not escalate into a clash, which would have dominated Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid’s visit to China tomorrow, which is to prepare for Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to visit India on May 20. This will be his first foreign trip and will be a major test of the new Chinese administration’s intentions with foreign policy.
