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. So this week on The Inquiry we’re asking ‘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
Technical Producer: Craig Boardman
Production Co-ordinator: Janet Staples

Image: South Africa-Economy-Summit-BRICS, China’s President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: Mike Hutchings/AFP via Getty Images