Evaluating Dynamics of Sino-India Relations: Cooperation, Competition and Conflict

Recent border skirmishes between China and India are the new episode in the competitive relationship between the two. Competitive relationship comes out of divergences between the on various fronts especially their rise in power potentials and desire to become regional hegemons. Though Sino-Indian relationship has been cooperative-competitive since the first India-China border war in 1962, today it is considered as the most complex, competitive, and conflict-prone. Their border issues, trade competition and political influence in the South Asia and Indian Ocean region are the crucial factors in the cooperative-competitive relationship. Chinese massive naval build-up and assertiveness in the south and East China Sea and India’s strategic partnerships with the extra-regional powers have made the relationship more complicated. This paper tries to dissect the complex nature and dynamics of the competitive-cooperative Sino-India relationship. It explains the pattern of China-India bilateral relations with specific focus on competition, conflict, and cooperation. Effort has also been made to evaluate the impact of the conflict or cooperation cycles on their nature and development of bilateral ties.