High up in the Himalayas is found one of the world’s potentially combustible hotspots, with the gigantic nations of India and China in heated contention. Conn Hallinan in counterpunch stresses what some Indian analysts have been claiming ‘that China has now replaced Pakistan as India’s greatest threat, while Beijing has been uncharacteristically assertive in pushing its claims for a sizable chunk of India’s Arunachai Pradesh state.’

The terrain may not seem at all inviting, even less credibly viable to be fought over, but the legacy of past colonialism seems to rear its ugly head in this particular competition. Add to that is the present and persistent fact that the US, in its imperialistic and global hegemonic ambitions, wants to assert, as it always seems to do anywhere else, ‘its pre-eminent role in the region.’

The disputed area bordering Tibet is being claimed by China precisely because it was once connected to Tibet. China refuses to recognize the British demarcation of the area back in 1914 ‘because they saw it as just another treaty forced on China by Western colonial powers.’ Never mind that the disputed area is just 90,000 square miles of ice, rock, and tons of thin air.

India and China, giants as they are, have always been sensitive about their respective borders. But here’s the rub. The US has entered the picture. Because India has become an overt ally of the US, the former runs to the latter for support. India’s former UN ambassador, Arundhati Ghose, claimed, “We are the big boys here and Asia can only afford one power.”

If the US is meddling in regional affairs, it would do it well to realize the fact that no matter how many points of dispute there have been between India and China throughout history, the two Asian giants are painfully interconnected and interdependent of each other. ‘China is now India’s number one trading partner. Bilateral trade has risen from under $3 billion in 2000 to almost $52 billion in 2008, and is growing at almost three times the rate of U.S.-China trade.

Estimates are that by 2020, China-India trade will surpass $410 billion, a figure equal to last year’s U.S.-China trade. With China’s powerful manufacturing sector, and India’s wealth of raw materials and its cutting-edge technology industry, the two countries complement one another.’

Via counterpunch