Girish Kotecha asked: What is the status of cooperation between India and China in multilateral organisations?

Raviprasad Narayanan replies: The cooperation between India and China in multilateral organisations is largely ephemeral. The cooperation if any was fleeting at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen since both countries were labelled ‘obstructionist’ by shrill environment protection lobbies. That fleeting cooperation did not reflect in the bilateral on environment. The two countries are at different wavelengths with China being the world's second largest economy and India being the sixth largest – statistics being strangely different nationally and internationally. India can express itself with more clarity at international forums if it does not bandwagon and articulates an informed predicated line of reasoning abiding by global norms. A consensus builder is what India needs to be. China has its own weltanschauung (worldview) not very different from what the United States has been doing. The only difference is China quietly impressing upon many the success of a political system that is not capitalist and swearing by ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’

Dr. Raviprasad Narayanan is Associate Professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was earlier Associate Fellow at IDSA.

Views expressed are of the expert and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

Posted on September 23, 2019