India and China have been embroiled in a cold war over an area in the remote territory of the Himalayas for over a month now while throwing malicious threats at each other. The border dispute has dragged on for over 4 decades and the only reason tensions haven’t escalated are due to the economic partnership between the two countries.
The economic trades between the two countries topped $71 billion last year, as released by India’s Department of Commerce. As India is becoming a more digitally aware country, most of the trades have resulted from telecom equipment and need for industrial machinery which stood at $51 billion during the last financial year.
Most of China’s investment has come through in the last 3 years as the Chinese government looks to tap into India’s fast growing markets due to slow growth back home in China. Chinese companies such as Oppo, Tencent, Alibaba have all invested heavily in the Indian market. Both countries cannot afford to get their militaries involved as India too is looking to aggressively improve its infrastructure facilities and it needs funding from its Chinese neighbours.
Due to the increase in tensions over who owns the territory New Delhi is planning to block a $1.3 billion acquisition of India's Gland Pharma by China's Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, as reported by Bloomberg. If India is successful in blocking the deal then China could respond by slowing down sales of solar panels and raw materials for pharmaceutical companies in India.
National security apprehensions still upstage financial ties, but a real disintegration of relationship between the two countries could be a cause of real concern to either country.
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