Reviews of ‘Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s-1960s’, and ‘Tea-War: A History of Capitalism in China and India’: India’s forgotten China links

With research and anecdotes, two books steer clear of a reductive framing of relations between old neighbours and embrace the complexities

The framing of the long history of India’s interactions with China tends to usually veer between two extremes. The centuries of exchanges, from trade along the Silk Road and Buddhism’s journey to China to maritime interactions, are sometimes invoked to suggest some idealised, pan-Asian, harmonious, and shared civilisational past. On the other end of the spectrum, more recent interactions, from the early 20th century policing of Chinese streets by policemen from British India, an episode that remains deeply etched in Chinese consciousness, to the difficulties in relations between the two new states that came into being in 1947 and 1949, are seen as evidence of dooming both neighbours to perennial confrontation.