ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with comparisons between China and India, historically and contemporaneously. It provides a broader view of economic relations than just trade and investment, the core areas of interaction, to include an emerging area of competition but also possible cooperation, namely, connectivity. The book analyses the two core areas of economic interaction. It aims to trace China and India’s policies toward connectivity and China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative in particular. Using largely Chinese sources, the book argues that “direct transcultural exchanges” were at no time dominant in the relationship; indeed, economic exchanges were not terribly intense either. By the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals and elites looked at India negatively: India represented political and social backwardness. Beyond culture, China–India relations are framed through the lens of strategic ideas.
