High Altitudes, High Stakes: What Next for China-India Relations?

After violent border clashes between Chinese and Indian troops resonated high and wide around the world last June, the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential campaign diluted most non-China-related news spreading from Asia. Nonetheless, the situation on the Himalayan border and tensions between the two Asian powers are still far from resolved. The growing economic and geopolitical competition between New Delhi and Beijing, the pandemic’s disruptive effects, as well as the role of silent “third” players with their own agenda in the region raise questions as to how relations between the two countries are likely to evolve. What are the stakes at play? How are two radically different political and economic systems trying to stand out in the “Asian century”? With which consequences on a regional and global level?