Public understanding important for Sino-India ties: Book

China-India relationship, which has always been described as one "full of competitions and confrontations", is among the most important in Asia and public understanding is needed to restore trust, according to a new book on Sino-India relations.
Written by Zhao Gancheng, director and research fellow of South Asia Studies at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, the book says that the development motivation of Sino-India relationship is decided by the fundamental interests of the two neighbours, instead of simple confrontation.
"Against the accelerated development of globalisation, the international statuses of the two countries have also undergone profound changes, which provide new perspectives to evaluate the definition and nature of this relationship," a write up on the book 'Status Quo & Prospect: A Study on China-India Relations' said.

The relationship is among the most important in Asia. In the traditional geopolitical pattern, this relationship has always been described as one full of competitions and confrontations.
China and India share a long tradition of culture as well as a history of being suppressed by the West. Such common experience should have exerted a positive influence on the public's impression on the other side, the article said.
"However, this is not the case in reality. The civil exchanges and culture communication between the two countries are not satisfactory in either quality or quantity, which has meant a shortfall for the future development of the bilateral relationship," it said.

Recognising such public opinion environment, decision-makers of the two countries have taken some measures stressing that there is enough room for the development of both countries in many bilateral or multilateral occasions.

In fact, as early as 1954, the two countries jointly stated the "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence", claiming that peaceful coexistence is the core of the Sino-India relationship. Unfortunately, this was shortly followed by the war of 1962.
But Zhao notices that there is still a large space for discussion of how to coexist peacefully. If the peace between the two is just a "cold peace," the prospects of the bilateral relationship will still not be optimistic.

In such a case, Zhao holds that intercultural communication and civil exchanges can play an important role in improving the situation.
Indeed, there are negative factors in this relationship. Zhao admits that, but he also insists that this doesn't mean the relationship of the two Asian powers is doomed to be competitive.
There is vulnerability in the bilateral relationship, but as long as both sides enhance intercultural communication and increase civil exchanges, the two countries are not fated to continuous conflict, it said.