by : Telegraph The United States has increasingly found it has more in common with democratic India, previously a friend of the Soviet Union, than with its Cold War ally against Moscow, Communist China. This crucial shift has left the two Asian giants on opposite geopolitical sides and brought their many differences into sharper focus. Growth in trade, repeated visits by state leaders and declarations of a "win-win partnership", have failed to bridge the differences. China has settled its border disputes with every neighbour along its vast landmass, from Vietnam to Russia, with the sole exception of India. This territorial dispute reached its nadir with a short but bloody frontier war, which China won in 1962. The issues underlying that conflict have not gone away, and new grievances have been added. China still claims the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which stands on its Himalayan border and contains important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Meanwhile, India says that China presently occupies 16,500 square miles of its territory in the high Himalayas. These territorial wrangles came to the surface last year when China refused a visa for a member of an Indian trade delegation on the grounds that he came from Arunachal Pradesh and was theoretically a Chinese citizen. India then invited the Taiwanese opposition leader, now the island's president, Ma Ying-jeou, to visit. India also fears China's close military co-operation with its traditional enemy, Pakistan. The two have joint weapons development projects, while China also provided Pakistan with nuclear and missile technology. China objects to the shelter that India gives to the Dalai Lama. Beijing fears that despite India's official recognition of Chinese rule in Tibet, it secretly backs Tibetan independence. Indian military analysts suspect that China's military deployments in Tibet are aimed not only at controlling the region, but also at supplying a future war front. For its part, Beijing thinks that the US is trying to "encircle" it with stronger alliances with democratic powers, particularly India, Japan and Australia. Washington's agreement to support India's civil nuclear programme, which had been off-limits since New Delhi's first test of a nuclear weapon in 1974, was seen as the latest sign that the US could find powerful friends in new places.
