With the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, India and China could potentially join forces and foster economic power. This dialogue could lead to gaining high-speed Chinese trains and to having Indian information technology experts working in China. This dialogue would also open up more opportunities for foreign direct investment between the two countries. The India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue aimed to achieve $70 billion of trade by the end of 2012 and hopes to achieve more than $100 billion of trade between the two countries by 2015. This could even strengthen their strong trade relationship. Currently, China is India’s biggest trade partner. In addition to the impact of the high-speed rail system, there are 10 agreements that were expected to be signed in November of 2012.
The impact of the potential connection between the two countries is important because it shows India’s willingness to allow Chinese companies enter the Indian market and the China’s willingness to allow Indian companies into its market. India looks to also learn from the China’s infrastructure technology in order to build similar small routes in its own country including a line from Delhi to Chandigarh.
An important issue with these discussions is the concern about the safety of the high-speed rail systems. In July of 2011, 40 people were killed in a collision near
Wenzhou. Due to this incident there has been a lot of work by the Chinese to increase the safety of this rail system.
Finally, the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue also has brought up cooperation between China and India in looking for clean technologies aimed to reduce global warming impacts. There has allowed been discussion of creating to working groups to tackle energy efficiency and environmental protection.
In conclusion, the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue could create a high-speed rail linking the two countries and increasing trade of goods, services, and investment, lead to investment in green technologies, and better technological improvements for both countries.
Hindustan Times article and
South China Morning Post article
Note that China and India have a disputed border where a minor war was fought in the 1962 with occasional skirmishes since. India also has nuclear missles, and a large army. Now the Himalayas help, but is either side willing to compromise? And when it comes to influencing the global trading system, will they see eye to eye? Cooperation is easy to discuss as a principle but is hard to implement when it comes to particulars. In Japanese: 総論賛成、各論反対
While it is sad that 40 people died in 2011 from a high-speed rail collision, that number does not even begin to compare to the amount of deaths from automobile accidents. I think both sides should continue work on improving safety, however, I dont think it should be a reason not to build the rails. With automobile ownership rapidly increasing throughout China the government could drastically improve the overall safety of their citizens by having more rails as alternatives to driving.
It’s time for the U.S. to follow the Chinese lead in developing high speed rail. One of the new lines that opened in China is capable of transporting people the equivalent of Miami to New York in 8 hours! Connecting the major cities of the East Coast by high speed rail would be very beneficial to the U.S. economy.