Limitations of India-China Economic Engagement

The current global economic meltdown offers historic opportunities for China and India to catapult their respective positions in the international system. Increasing recognition of their roles in the global academic debates,and more recently by the G20 summits,remain both the cause as also the consequence of their ever expanding mutual economic engagement. However,their expanding trade deficit,continued abysmally-low mutual investments,lackluster border trade and stagnant border negotiations allude to their lack of appreciation of their upfront systemic bottleneck threatening to undermine this most reliable pillar of their rapprochement. This calls for deeper and urgent examination of their structural bottlenecks so as to ensure their continued robust economic engagement which remains the most essential prerequisite if China and India have to play a pivotal role in regional and global economic stabilization and upturn. Such an outcome remains intertwined with their own peaceful rise as major stakeholders of this rapidly transforming international system.