Wen Jiabao’s India visit: A Strategic Review

With Wen Jiabao’s visit to India, both China and India celebrated the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic ties. The Chinese Premier’s advocacy of grassroots interactions between the two ancient civilisations indicates the idealist sentiment that still informs India-China relations at some level. But the realist political parameters of this visit were restricted to the “good neighbours” rhetoric only. The Chinese Premier made no attempt to convince the Indian strategic community about the political issues that matter to New Delhi. The success of the visit was limited to strengthening links of economic diplomacy between the two Asian giants, ignoring the geo-political and strategic issues that act as de-stabilisers in Sino-Indian relations. Moreover, it is not clear as to what extent the visit inflected the overall discourse on Sino-Indian relations.

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