When Indian pilgrims set foot in Tibet again this summer, their arrival heralded a new beginning for India and China, five years after a deadly Himalayan clash plunged the two bitter rivals into a diplomatic deep freeze.
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But with the machinery of engagement whirring once more amid flaring global trade wars and shifting strategic alliances, hopes have sprung anew that Asia’s two largest economies might finally move past the years of suspicion and silence.
Late last month, New Delhi resumed issuing visas to Chinese citizens across a number of categories in a gesture welcomed by Beijing as a “positive move”. The decision came just weeks after China began allowing Indian pilgrims to return to the Tibet autonomous region, ending a pause imposed during the pandemic amid heightened border tensions.
There is great potential, but they really need to work on the trust deficit
Yashwant Deshmukh, Indian political analyst
Direct flights between the two countries, suspended since the Covid era, are also expected to resume imminently. These initial measures could pave the way for deeper cooperation, experts say, injecting fresh dynamism into a relationship long held hostage by mistrust.
“If they can get their act together, they have more common things to work upon,” said Yashwant Deshmukh, independent political analyst and founder of Indian pollster C-Voter. “There is great potential, but they really need to work on the trust deficit.”
Deshmukh warned that the “400-pound gorilla in the room” – their disputed Himalayan border – remained unresolved. “It is something they need to sit together and just get over with,” he said, noting that for centuries, the two civilisations had largely coexisted peacefully.
Indian and Chinese troops greet each other along the Line of Actual Control near the Karakoram Pass on October 31, 2024. Photo: Indian Army/AFP
War and peace
India and China share a vast, undemarcated frontier snaking through the Himalayas. Since a brief but bitter war in 1962, an unofficial Line of Actual Control has served as an uneasy boundary.
