Abstract

In a long and expansive view, India and China are two adjacent civilizations, separated by the largely impassable Himalaya and the forbidding Tibetan plateau, the Indian Ocean and five millennia of autonomous development of state systems, culture, faith and identity. Over the last two millennia, largely land and limited maritime contact between them has been almost continuous. This has involved an exchange of goods, ideas, culture and religion mediated by the elite and the courageous individuals who made the arduous and often dangerous journey (Frank 1998; Hsu 1995). Yet, at a popular level, each was constructed as a distant ‘other’— close enough to be alluring, but far enough not to stir up serious conflict.