The Next Great Empire Belongs To India And China

by Franz Schurmann

One answer is that both countries are sick and tired of their mutual hatred of each other. The animosity started in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet to India, where he still lives. In 1962 the two countries fought a war over Aksai-Chin, a barren plateau in the frozen Himalayas. Neither side gained anything except deepening hatred.

However, the thaw in the relations between the two countries occurred in January 2002, when former Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji visited India. Zhu was the first high-ranking Chinese official to do so in 11 years. This time Zhu started a process that recently resulted in joint maneuvers by the two navies in the East China Sea. Zhu also gave a speech in Bangalore, India's information Technology (IT) hub. The gist of the speech was that China excels in hardware while India excels in software. And his punch line was that the two countries should work together.

Two years later, Sino-Indian IT cooperation is moving at a fast pace. An example of this Sino-Indian common market is that NIIT Ltd, one of India's biggest software producing firms, has landed a contract to build 125 schools in China's 25 provinces. NIIT will teach 25,000 students each year.

Another answer to the question how hatred morphed into cooperation is that both China and India are ancient empires that produced brilliant civilizations. Empires are states that rule over a great diversity of peoples and extend over huge tracts of lands. Civilizations are cultures on a vast scale. And culture can be defined as the ways people live, work and think together.

Some empires rest on great civilizations, others do not. The former last very long while the latter do not. China and India are the world's greatest examples of the former. And great empires like these seek peace and prosperity. It's the short-lived empires that stir up wars, like the ones led by Napoleon and Hitler.

The Indians and Chinese have three or four millennia of civilization embedded in the minds and souls of their huge populations. Now they also have well-functioning states highly respected throughout the world. It's not coincidental that Indian and Chinese youngsters do well in many areas of education. They are all immersed in stories about great heroes and heroines that mould their minds and give their souls direction. Their most powerful direction is education.

Furthermore, both civilizations radiated out to many countries, near and far. These collateral youngsters perform just as well as those of the root civilization. For one thing, they share the traditional stories of the root civilization. Even way back in history when foreigners ruled India and China these rulers accepted much or all of the great civilizations that surrounded them.

And over the centuries many of those foreign rulers gave their Indian and Chinese subjects the peace that provided security to farmers, traders and intellectuals. The rulers of both countries now know that the combination of a strong state and a brilliant civilization can give their huge populations what most want, peace and prosperity.

An answer to the question posed by Le Monde, why the new Sino-Indian common market is doing better than the European Union (EU), is that after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476BC, Europe only had only short-lived empires. Charlemagne's attempt lasted less than two decades.

Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in 1804 and met his Waterloo in 1815. Hitler's Thousand Year Reich didn't even last a decade.

Around the beginning of the second millennium Europe did create a civilization, the Renaissance, that still sends rays of knowledge and beauty all over the world. But they were not able to create a Roman-style empire in Europe.

Britain built a vast empire all over the world but shunned Europe. France's dominion over Europe died at Waterloo. Like many empires, Austria had great diversity but was never able to create a strong state.

And today, while Europe is still struggling to build a strong European state, India and China are using their historical capital to create both brilliant civilizations and strong states.