Can China and India fix their relationship?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the recent BRICS economic summit in South Africa, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping had a rare face-to-face meeting. For years these two world powers have been in dispute over their ill-defined border in the Himalayan region. A military escalation of this dispute in 1962 led to the creation of the ‘line of actual control’ or the LAC, the de facto border between the two countries.
Down the years there have been a number of clashes along the LAC and its commonly agreed that relations now are at their lowest point since 1962.
And whilst India has taken steps to reduce its economic dependence on China in a bid to engage in trade relations on an equal footing, they are both competing to become the dominant power in the global south with financial aid and infrastructure projects.
Both sides agreed at their BRICS meeting to intensify efforts to de-escalate border tensions. Can China and India fix their relationship?’
Contributors: Shibani Mehta, senior research analyst with the Security Studies Programme, Carnegie India, New Delhi Dr Ivan Lidarev, visiting fellow at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank and Asia security expert Dr Geeta Kochhar, assistant professor, Centre for Chinese and South-East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Steve Tsang, professor of Chinese Studies and director of the SOAS China Institute, London
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Jill Collins Researcher: Matt Toulson Editor: Tara McDermott
(Photo: China’s President Xi Jinping (L) and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: Mike Hutchings/AFP)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From global current affairs to art, science and culture, the documentary from the BBC World Service |
| 0:08.0 | tells the world's stories, search for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:15.0 | Welcome to The Inquiry, I'm Charmaine Cosia, each week one question for expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:31.0 | August 2023, a relationship is in trouble. Trust has faded, boundaries are being tested. |
| 0:40.0 | One side tells the other to stay calm, unsurprisingly that doesn't help, more cracks appear. |
| 0:47.0 | The few-ding parties are China and India. At the heart of it all is a long-standing border dispute, |
| 0:53.0 | but that's not the only source of friction between the two most popular countries in the world. |
| 0:58.0 | So this week we're asking, can China and India fix their relationship? |
| 1:09.0 | Part 1, The Line of Actual Control |
| 1:16.0 | The line of actual control or the LAC is essentially a concept that distinguishes Indian-Hand territory from Chinese health territory. |
| 1:29.0 | Jubali Metta is a senior research analyst with the Security Studies Program at Carnegie India. |
| 1:36.0 | Her work focuses on the India-China boundary and the disputes that surround it, like where it is exactly. |
| 1:43.0 | Why the LAC is interesting is that the alignment of it has never been agreed upon by both India and China. |
| 1:52.0 | So it's neither been defined or demarcated on the ground. |
| 1:58.0 | The LAC can be understood as the de facto border between India and China. |
| 2:02.0 | It's thousands of kilometres long. |
| 2:05.0 | So the LAC extends across the north-eastern part of India. |
| 2:11.0 | It is mountainous, there is a glacier, there's a lot of dry land as well, and then in certain parts of the LAC you also have some very fertile ground with a lot of vegetation. |
| 2:27.0 | Also along parts of the disputed border are numerous construction projects, including residential villages. |
| 2:33.0 | So none of it is overtly military infrastructure. |
| 2:37.0 | On the Indian side as well, there's been a similar boost. More roads are being built. |
| 2:43.0 | There's been an entire programme called the Vibrant Village programme has been launched. |
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