Welcome to The World in 10.
In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security.
Today with me, Alex Dibble and Tom Noonan.
Donald Trump's threat of tariffs against China and India over their relations with Russia has put the US's relationship with the world's two most populous countries back in the spotlight.
But a relationship that is just as consequential and could define the 21st century is the one between China and India.
To talk us through a relationship that is often disregarded by some in the West,
we're joined by Michael Kugelman, who's our guest today.
He is a longtime South Asia analyst based in Washington.
Michael, whilst there are areas of cooperation between the two,
there have been many times in the past when the India-China relationship has been pretty bad,
haven't there?
It's a very complex relationship,
and I would argue that there is this inherent competition between India and China,
not just because they happen to be the two largest and most populous states,
but also the fact that they have each tended to view themselves as civilizational states,
which means each state having this very rich...
old history and also being very large, prominent, powerful states.
So I think there's this inherent competition.
But if we look at how things have played out in recent years, you know,
it's a complex relationship in the sense that they do tend to cooperate on many areas and share a lot of interests,