India-China Relations #1: Bilateral Reasons
Kanti Bajpai’s book, India Versus China , is very informative on why the two countries have been neutral at best, and adversarial at all other times. In ancient times, the Himalayas were an insurmountable barrier. As Vikram Seth wrote in his travelogue through China: “The two countries, despite their contiguity, have had almost no contact in the course of history… the heartlands of the two great cultures have been almost untouched by each other.” Sure, a few well known travellers moved around, Buddhism spread, but there was no ruler-to-ruler contact nor any significant trade between the two. Thus, neither side has any positive memory of the other. And contact during the imperialist era had Indians as part of the British attack force on China… Since independence, China views India the way we view Pakistan – the frustration that nothing can be done to settle things once and for all with a vastly weaker neighbour. Why not? The Himalayas prevent any full-scale Chinese invasion. C