It's the Economy, Cupid

The spectre of China ought to be dispelled by the prospect of business.

- Pranay Sharma

DURING a brief stopover in New Delhi in 1959, Ayub Khan had made a suggestion to Jawaharlal Nehru that might now sound strange to most Indians and Pakistanis. Ayub wanted Nehru to cooperate with him in dealing with the likely threat that a Communist China would pose to the region. Predictably, the proposal was rejected by a Nehru reluctant to gang up with a country close to the US at the height of the Cold War, against a fellow member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The relatively unknown episode, however, gathers ironic salience in today’s context as strained Indo-Pakistan relations seem to have become one of the major impediments in realising India China relations to its full potential.