As Ukrainians resist the Russian invasion, a renewed cold war is heating up between Russia and the NATO partners. Western sanctions are intensifying on Russia and the situation threatens to engulf other regions, challenging other tense regional dynamics — including the fragile relationship between India and China.
India and China’s relations have been plagued by a territorial dispute that flared into a border skirmish on June 15, 2020, resulting in 20 Indian soldiers being killed and an estimated 43 Chinese soldiers injured. This not only restricted the development of bilateral relations, but also sowed seeds of a new cold war between India and China.
The Cold War between the US and Russia featured two countries vying for global and regional leadership, engaged in an ideological conflict of democracy versus socialism, and campaigns of military containment and proxy wars. The two countries never broke into person-to-person warfare, nor were there economic interactions, and the massive nuclear weapons threat lingering in the background remained just that.
