Indo-China Border Conflict, Regional Geopolitics and Bilateral Trade

Abstract

Being two giant economic players of the world, China and India experienced a disastrous border conflict in the Ladakh area of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) during April 2020, just at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. This theoretical paper is an effort to identify the tentative impact of that border clash on the bilateral trade between two countries from the perspective of regional geopolitics. The author has utilized secondary information such as newspapers articles, journal articles, online sources, and economists’ opinions on this issue as well as has made some predictions based on the previous bilateral trade statistics. The author proposes that even though the border issue has become very sensitive and important for both countries regarding the geopolitical necessity, the bilateral trade scenario will not be much affected on a substantial scale on a long-term basis. The author further predicts that a likely trade conflict between the two economically promising countries will be contagious for both. Finally, the author expects this paper to be beneficial for further research attempts focusing on the geopolitical economy of bilateral trade.