NEW DELHI -- When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrives in India next week, the rhetoric of cooperation between the two Asian giants will intensify. But one has only to scratch the surface to know the extent of the embedded mistrust and competition between the two.
To be sure, bilateral tensions have ebbed, helping to boost bilateral trade from a mere $262 million in 1991 to nearly $14 billion now. However, if growing trade could connote political progress, Japan and China, with more than 10 times larger bilateral trade, would not be locked today in an emergent cold war.
It has become commonplace to compare India's and China's economic march in the belief that the two would spearhead global economic growth and help make the 21st century an Asian century. The comparisons inexorably pit India's services sector-driven growth and institutional stability, founded on pluralism, transparency and rule of the law, against China's resolute leadership, high savings rate, good infrastructure and manufacturing forte.