søndag 5. juli 2020

Did China miscalculate the rise of India?

While China’s attention was fixed on a new Cold War with the United States, tensions on its troubled Himalayan border with India erupted last month in the deadliest clash in over 50 years. The fatal skirmish rubbed salt into an old wound that has refused to heal since the 1962 border war, and raised questions about China’s strategic calculations on the rise of India. It also prompted fears about armed conflicts between the nuclear powers becoming a deadly manifestation of the Thucydides Trap.

The much-debated concept, which was coined by Harvard professor Graham Allison in reference to the possibility of military confrontations when a rising power threatens a dominant one, is usually reserved to describe the superpower showdown between China and the US. But could it also be the case between China and India?