ABSTRACT
It has been widely accepted that China will be Asia’s new “lead goose.” There is, however, a major rival emerging in China’s own backyard. India’s new star status raises the question of how these two demographic titans will deal with one another. Can they respect each other’s spheres of influence in a bifurcated Asia, or will they vie for supremacy on a pan-Asian scale? Clearly South Block (India’s External Affairs Ministry) was alarmed by the pro-China axis that linked Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh at the 13th Summit of SAARC (the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) in Dhaka and by China’s attempt to sideline India at the December 2005 East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur.1
