India and China: The End of Cold Peace?
Written by André Ken Jakobsson, PhD Fellow at Center for War Studies
The precarious relationship between Asia's two largest rising powers, India and China, is given the careful attention it deserves in this intriguing article by Jeff M. Smith.
The troubled relations between India and China are characterized through the concept of a Cold Peace that contains the states' border disputes, disagreements on maritime rules of the South China sea as well as the Tibet-issue. Smith argues that even though India and China have engaged in closer military cooperation, India is increasingly considering its neighbor as a regional threat and adapting its military in response to this while also upping its collaboration with the US.
This US-India cooperation will be a vital stake in the Obama administration's Pivot to Asia and a strategic relationship that must garner the attention of the next US president in his or her efforts at handling the Chinese rise.
Jeff M. Smith is Director of South Asia Programs and Kraemer Strategy Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington DC and the article is based on excerpts of Smith's new book "Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the 21st Century."