The bilateral relationship between China and India, described in rich imagery as the “dragon-elephant tango” by President Xi Jinping, came into focus when leaders from the two nations exchanged greetings on April 1 for the 75th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties.
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Currently both Asian giants are trying to arrive at a modus vivendi over a long festering territorial dispute that in 2020 erupted into a deadly clash in the Galwan region of Ladakh in the high Himalayas.
Xi noted that both nations are ancient civilisations, major developing countries and important members of the Global South and are both at critical stages of modernisation. He suggested that developing bilateral ties is the “right choice” for the two countries to realise the dragon-elephant tango.
Both China and India aspire to be credible leaders to safeguard the interests of the Global South and have promoted different initiatives, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the more recently unveiled “Mahasagar” by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The latter builds on the “Sagar” framework that Modi had formulated in 2015 to provide security and growth throughout the Indian Ocean region.
The credibility of both nations to tangibly help other members of the Global South when required is currently being tested in Myanmar, which is reeling from the impact of a powerful earthquake that struck the region on March 28.
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By Sunday, Myanmar’s state media had reported the death toll to be 3,471 with 4,671 injured and another 214 still missing. The scale of destruction near Mandalay, close to the epicentre of the earthquake – which had a magnitude of 7.7, according to the United States Geological Survey – has been described by the United Nations top aid official as “staggering”.