This week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited India in his first official overseas trip, vowing to enhance bilateral trade relations and ease tensions in the wake of a recent border dispute between the two countries. In an email interview, Arvind Panagariya, a professor of economics and Indian political economy at Columbia University, explained the recent trajectory of India-China trade relations. WPR: What is the current state of trade relations between India and China, including the value of bilateral trade, balance of trade and major sectors, as well as the priority both sides place on bilateral trade? Arvind Panagariya: Bilateral trade […]

The full motivation for China’s recent incursion into Indian territory along their disputed border in eastern Kashmir is as yet unclear. But the incident brings to the fore the issue of unpredictability in Chinese foreign policy implementation and Beijing’s frequent recourse to low-level aggression, often deployed to shape the backdrop to formal diplomatic negotiations. With specific regard to India, despite a general trend toward deepening cooperation, the incident lowers hopes that China’s new leadership would move to clear up uncertainty in bilateral relations and create a firmer basis for cultural and economic exchange. On April 15, in the Depsang Valley […]

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid visited Tehran last weekend to attend the 17th meeting of the India-Iran Joint Commission. Though the most surprising outcome of the visit was the agreement on a common diplomatic initiative for resolving the Syrian crisis, a number of other agreements, including for the expansion of the strategically important Chabahar port on the Arabian Sea, signal a closer alignment on a more critical geopolitical interest that the two sides share: ensuring long-term stability in Afghanistan. Clearly the scheduled U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan is driving a new diplomatic engagement between India and Iran. Contrast this […]

One year from now, one of the great pageants of democracy will unfold in India, as hundreds of millions of citizens of the world’s largest democracy go to the polls to choose a new parliament. India’s May 2014 general election will focus, as it always has, on the need to fight poverty, reduce inequality and foster economic growth. And yet, more than ever before, the issue of corruption will play a pre-eminent role in guiding the voters’ decision. That’s because the Indian people are gradually but decisively coming to believe that endemic corruption is one of the greatest obstacles in […]