ABSTRACT:
India's relations with China have been a major factor in India's foreign policy. Since India was so preoccupied in her post-partition problems and China was so deeply involved in the civil war that, as Werner Levi wrote: "direct relations between the two countries, apart from contacts in international bodies were mostly restricted to the formalities and routine of the usual international contact". But, soon the two countries were to develop intimate and friendly bilateral relations. This meant revival of age old friendship between the two largest countries of Asia. The arrival of western imperialism in Asia had disturbed the traditional friendship. In population, human resources and potential, India and China, the two giant of Asia, far outstrip any other country of Asia. "They carry the weight of proud history stretching into mythology and appear to be both ageless and timeless." Cultural exchanges between the two countries had taken place even more than 2000 years back. But, in modern times it was at the Brussels Conference of 1927, where several depressed nations had assembled, a joint statement was issued by the representatives of China and India. It underlined the need for Sino-Indian cooperation in the task of liberation of Asia from western imperialism. During the japanese attack on Manchuria province of China in 1931 not only "China Day" was observed in India but a call was also given by Indian nationalists for boycott of Japanese goods. The Asian Relations Conference was convened in New Delhi in March, 1947. At that time India was not yet independent, but Jawaharlal Nehru was the Interim Prime Minister. The Chinese delegates, sent by Chinag Kai-Shek's KMT (Kuomintang) Government, objected to a map in which Tibet was not shown as part of China.