NEW DEHLI: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in India at the head of a huge business delegation on Wednesday to try and shore up a relationship undermined by persistent trade and territorial disputes.
Hundreds of Tibetan exiles protesting Chinese rule over their homeland marched through the streets of New Delhi ahead of Wen's visit, his first to India in five years.
Wen and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh have both stated that the world is "large enough" to accommodate the growth and ambition of the two Asian giants, but ties are dogged by a history of mutual suspicion and mistrust.
Growing competition for global markets and the raw materials needed to keep their fast-growing economies on the move has exacerbated tensions over border disputes, trade and the activities in India of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. China's ambassador to India, Zhang Yan, warned ahead of Wen's two-day visit that relations between China and India were "fragile... easy to (damage) and difficult to repair."
Wen, the latest world leader to beat a path to India's door, will be accompanied by about 400 Chinese business leaders, outnumbering the recent delegations headed by US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Annual bilateral trade currently totals close to $60 billion, with India pushing hard for greater access to Chinese markets to redress a yawning trade surplus in China's favour estimated at between 18-25 billion dollars.
Talks between Wen and Singh on Thursday are certain to touch on the two countries' disputed Himalayan border - the cause of a brief but bloody war in 1962 and the focus of 14 rounds of largely fruitless negotiations.
Both sides have become increasingly assertive over their territorial rights and Beijing was infuriated last year by New Delhi's refusal to block a visit by the Dalai Lama to the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in full. The Dalai Lama, regarded as a dangerous separatist by Beijing, has lived in exile in India since fleeing a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet. Harsh V Pant, a lecturer in the Department of Defence Studies at King's College London, said tensions were inevitable in a relationship that will help define the balance of global power in the 21st century.
"A troubled history, coupled with the structural uncertainties engendered by their simultaneous rise, is propelling the two Asian giants into a trajectory that they might find rather difficult to navigate in the coming years," Pant said. "India-China ties have entered choppy waters and they are likely to remain there for the foreseeable future," he added.
Wen will follow his visit with a trip to Pakistan whose close ties with Beijing have always been viewed with suspicion from New Delhi.
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