2 comments | Print this Article | E-Mail Top Press CommentaryIndia and China on Climate Change: Let's Work TogetherApart from hosting international sporting events in the near future, Delhi and Beijing have a lot in common at the moment, according to Narayani Ganesh of the Times of India: both face increasingly serious environmental challenges. However these common issues offer opportunities for scientific cooperation, as shown by a memorandum on environmental collaboration signed during PM Manohan Singh’s recent visit to China. In fact, the US based Worldwatch Institute predicts that India and China could be world leaders in sustainable energy within a decade. For example the two countries could cooperate on coal-bed methane capture, technology that would increase the efficiency of their main energy source. Collaborative research and development holds economic advantages but could also challenge the global perception of what is meant by progress and development. The Times of India, 21st January 2008.Comments
 Thu, Feb 7th 2008, 11:22
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For example the document did not represent a breakthrough on issues such as the China-India border dispute and setting down any common regulations is going to be difficult. However, the memorandum is more about sharing technology and cooperating scientifically to develop alternative energy and in particular to cooperate on developing civil nuclear energy. The two countries also hope to work towards “mutually beneficial economic globalisation” and aim at the continuous democratisation of international relations and multilateralism. Hopefully this means there will be less conflict over foreign energy sources and other economic interests in the future, and greater cooperation over international challenges. Although contradicting with some of their economic interests, signing this document was surely a step in the right direction, setting a precedent for other countries to look past cultural and religious differences in order to cooperate on wider global issues. Perhaps the Middle East could get with the program? (I certainly wouldn’t expect Russia to hold a friendship year with any of her neighbours.) There is a summary of “A Shared Vision for the 21st Century” here: http://www.hindu.com/nic/rd4.html |
Tue, Feb 5th 2008, 16:23
Katharina Hock, University of Konstanz, (5)
The indo-china trade relations are vibrant, with India already being the second biggest trading partner to China after the United States.
Their plans to create synergies sound venturous, but cooperation in environmental and scientific matters is different, and it raises questions.
First, how can common regulations be achieved when each country doesn’t even manage to create them for domestic purposes ?
Second, both countries are eager to find new ways to satisfy their enormous thirst for natural resources, particularly oil.
But in order to keep up their booming economies and high growth rates, they have to react immediately, and this is were the contradictions began: at the same time when they decided on their plans to work together, they are competing against each other in the Gulf of Guinea, in a scramble for Africa’s precious oil reserves (see http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL14478684.html).
It might become another case how long-term prospects could be overlaid by short-term interests.