India-China still brothers?

Hindi chini bhai bhai was a famous slogan of yesteryears. Now this brotherhood seems to be missing between the two. Interestingly both the nations were born around the same time and their growth trajectory has been more or less identical. China as a nation firmly established itself in 1949 and India immediately embraced it as a loving neighbour. China however started irritating its big bro(India). It published in its maps a large section of indian territory as its own. However when big bro asked for clarification, it claimed that the maps were of 1912 and necessary corrections would be made. That turned out to be lie and very soon it formalised the maps and waged a war to occupy its claimed territories. The big brother’s trust in china was shattered and both parted ways after war never to talk with each other again for a decade. Meanwhile china decided to launch an economic attack on india by growing into an economic superpower. In this endeavour the communist china opened up its country for the capitalists in 1970s.
While India lurched into dark days of emergency where all economic activity came to standstill, china began growing into an economically stable nation. India after the BoP shock of 1990 embarked on economic reforms and opened up its market for the foreign capital. Very soon we reached a respectable stage on world economic stage and began sharing space with big wigs like US and UK. China had already firmly established its position. In 2000, one of the fine statesman of our times Shri Vajpayee embarked on a tour of china and that visit proved to be an ice breaker. Major decisions were made on border dispute, trade , technology etc. Very soon the camarederie grew and now they are the two biggest economic powers in asia. However india china interests are blurred. On some issues like climate change and global economic reforms we share a great rapport with china. This partnership managed to put across asia’s views effectively at copenhagen and other important summits. We seem to behave politely and formally on the global stage but in our backyard the scenario hasn’t changed much.
China with its string of pearls startegy is trying to tie down india’s growing influence over south asia. With India’s growing relations with US, china has been trying to counterbalance it by firming up its relationship with pak and russia. Particularly china’s relationship with pak is going to hurt india dearly. India despite its growing economic power has unfortunately not been able to influence its neighbur’s to the extent that china ahs influenced. India has a growing trust and trade deficit with its neighbours. Our fixxation with pakistan over the years has resulted in neglect of our other neighbours while china has been benevolent with all of India’s neighbours and managed to leverage its economic power to forge relationship with them.
With both china and India bound to grow in future , their interests are increasingly becoming orthogonal. In this time of economoic prosperity of the two antions the last thing that we need is a war. It is high time that the two brothers forget the past and reconcile. India should shed all its inhibitions and get down to a frank talk with china. Post the economic crisis, the world is wary of US as a leader and is waiting for a new leader to lead it. An India-china partnership can prove to be a worthy leader to the world and transform the 21st century into an asian century.