ABSTRACT
Does the Brazil-South Africa-India-China (BASIC) forum symbolise the core of both India’s and China’s primary international positions on climate negotiations strategy or are there additional factors and nuances attached to their strategies? The issues involved are: (i) the import of BASIC in the context of the developing-world phenomenon, particularly in the context of India-China crosscontinental interaction; and (ii) the complexity of these two Asian powers’ policies and politics over climate change negotiations and governance in the context of the convergence and divergences that exist between their own domestic and international policy positions. This chapter argues that the India-China engagement in the BASIC setting is part of their perspective of the North-South divide, where both bargain hard to protect their individual terrain in the climate dialogue within the rubric of developing-world identity and dialogue. The developingworld identity helps both countries uphold their national interest while building a pressure cluster to tackle the Western pressure on the climate issue.
