PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · India & the Global Centres of Power — Part 2
Examine the Geo-strategic points of contention in the bilateral relationship between India and China.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 not astray boundary row = structural contest for space + status between two rising powers k2 Pardesi’s overlapping spheres — Himalayas / South Asia / Indian Ocean as one rivalry, not many
Body flow
three-sector border > west: Aksai Chin (Xinjiang-Tibet highway) ~ east: “South Tibet” / Tawang — dispute rooted in Tibet + exiled Dalai Lama — second axis = encirclement — Pakistan + CPEC- through-PoK – BRI rejected on sovereignty – String of Pearls (Gwadar-Hambantota) > newer pressure = water > Yarlung Tsangpo mega-dam (Dec 2024), lower-riparian India > Galwan 2020 breaks 1988 consensus (Banerjee) ~ border now conditions everything > India-US + Quad convergence resented
Counter-view
interdependence + BRICS pull toward engagement — Oct 2024 Depsang—Demchok accord restores some calm
Conclusion routes
Rk! points interlock — territory, Tibet, Pakistan, ocean, water — bands one contest for Asian primacy k2 thaw incremental, not settlement (Joshi) – frontier peace the precondition — contention stays geo-strategic and open
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
