Celebrating 2006 as an 'India-China' friendship year, Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee made a befitting trip to China from May 29-June 3. This was Mukherjee's first visit to China since becoming the Defence Minister in 2004; Beijing rolled out the red carpet for him with a military welcome at the Central Military Commission Headquarters. Mukherjee said that the visit had given further momentum to the process of building trust and understanding, while prioritizing areas of cooperation, between the two countries. Acknowledging that the India-China partnership is an important determinant of regional and global peace and development, Mukherjee's visit marked a new phase in New Delhi's defence diplomacy. Sandwiched between his visit to Tokyo and Singapore, it highlights India's emerging role in Asian security. What is the significance of this visit to China and what does it prescribe for the years to come?

On 29 May 2006 the first-ever Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation was signed between China and India. The MoU calls for establishing a mechanism to ensure frequent exchanges between leaders of both Defence Ministries and the armed forces, in addition to developing an annual calendar for holding regular military exercises and training programmes. The MoU adds further content to the emerging strategic relationship and is a major confidence building measure. In recent years, the two countries have conducted joint naval exercises though interaction between ground forces has been restricted to border meetings and mountaineering expeditions. There has been no contact between the two Air Forces, and it was only in 2004 that the two countries reached an agreement on the exchange of military observers.

The MoU demonstrates that India no longer perceives a military threat from China. This is significant as in 1998 India's primary justification for the nuclear tests was the military threat it perceived from China. In 2003 the previous Defence Minister in the BJP Government, George Fernandes, also discounted this threat during a visit to China and the MoU comes as a further reinforcement of that view.

The MoU should also be seen in the context of Mukherjee's visit to Tokyo where he was alerted to Japan's growing concern about China's military expansion .The US too has voiced similar concerns, expressed explicitly in the Pentagon Report of 2006 which estimated that China's defence expenditure amounted to approximately $105 billion. Responding to Tokyo's desire for greater transparency in China's military affairs, Mukherjee said that China had always been a military power and that every country has its own perception of the development and modernization of its armed forces. The MoU also espouses the idea that the development of harmonious relations should not be dampened by economic competition. As two emerging powers, it is probable that the two would have competitive strategic interests and foreign policy objectives, and as India is also involved in military expansion it cannot point a finger at China.

This improvement in China-India relations has taken place against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical changes like the Indo-US strategic partnership. China and Pakistan meanwhile continue to foster a military and strategic partnership as China announced a major arms sale to Pakistan earlier this year and is investing heavily in infrastructure in Pakistan, including the Gwadar port. Simultaneously, China-Japan relations continue to deteriorate even as India and Japan venture on a security partnership for the first time in six decades.

In light of these developments, it is important for India and China to keep their relationship independent of dealings with other countries, even with those to whom either Beijing or New Delhi is opposed. The China-India bilateral relationship should not hinge on relations that either country has with other nations. It is important to pursue an independent yet not isolated foreign policy that makes it a point to avoid Cold War like groupings. Strategic alignments do not have take the form of an 'either/or' or 'neither/nor' arrangement as envisioned by containment policies and the non-alignment doctrine. Rather, they must adopt a 'both/and' structure where this delivers much more by way of security arrangements. China and India must develop a genuine method of accommodating each other as they are bound to frequently rub shoulders in the years to come. China and India's observer status in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, respectively, are examples of such accommodation.

Essentially for India and China, as two nuclear capable neighbours with a history of altercation, crafting a strategy for mutual accommodation is of utmost importance. Defence cooperation and confidence building measures can only work towards aiding such accommodation. It is hoped that Mukherjee's initiative will be one of many, signaling perhaps a new assertive and confident trend in Indian foreign policy. Defence arrangements with the US and Japan are further indications of this diplomacy and India must make it clear to them that cooperation with China is not directed at any third party and instead demonstrates a new maturity in Indian foreign policy.