The Pursuit of Prosperity: Exploring China’s Economic Dependence on India as a Deterrent to Conflict

Uday Khanapurkar

Was China’s rapidly expanding economic engagement with India in the period subsequent to its accession to the WTO in 2001 capable of acting as a restraint on conflictual behaviour targeted at its Asian neighbour? Will it be so in the near future? Does China’s pursuit of prosperity contain the germ for peace with India? These questions have acquired crucial significance in the Asian regional hierarchy as Sino-Indian relations in the 21st century experienced a widening hard power gap in China’s favour in accompaniment with the growing trade relationship. Drawing from the insights of a large oeuvre of literature investigating the nexus between economic interdependence and conflict, the author reconciles conventional theories of interdependence in international relations with contemporary Sino-Indian relations. With bilateral relations strained on account of border antagonisms and the perceived security dilemma, the extent to which greater economic intercourse is factored into China’s conflict calculus with India, is increasingly relevant to the future of peace in Asia. It is hoped that an interdisciplinary, theoretical retrodiction of Sino-Indian relations since 2001 can provide indispensable cues in constructing policies charged with maintaining peace in the future.

Uday Khanapurkar

Uday Khanapurkar is an undergraduate student pursuing his B.Sc. in Economics (Hons.) from the Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune, and is an intern at the Chennai Centre for China Studies (C3S). Deeply infatuated by the interconnectedness of the humanities, his aim is to segue into the disciplines of international relations and political science and establish a career in academia therein. His areas of interest are the peace sciences, conflict theory and political economy. It is his opinion that, while the odds may be stacked against peace in the international arena on account of human nature and systemic anarchy, conflict and peace are essentially probabilistic outcomes and that it is, therefore, morally incumbent on humankind to employ the human agency in ensuring the manifestation of peaceful outcomes and to avoid becoming victims of determinism.

Contents

Note from Internship Director
< Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
3. Research Design
4. Economic Interdependence between China and India
5. Conclusion: Prescriptions for India

Annexure
Notes