After talks in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony announced an agreement to resume joint military exercises, a move that signaled “a thaw in relations.” The two countries had suspended joint military exercises two years ago.
But while this latest agreement seems to signal a renewed effort to improve ties, serious strains remain in the relationship between the two emerging Asian powers.
For Jagannath P. Panda, a research fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, the major points of contention in the defense and security realm between China and India can be boiled down to three areas: “Resources, territory and power politics.”