Sociology

India is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. Despite her large population size and an unfriendly neighbour Pakistan, India has proved herself capable of scaling challenges to become one of the emerging super-powers.

An interesting element of Indias foreign policy relates to Indias relationship with China, another emerging super-power and the fastest growing economy. India emphasizes on the importance of establishing good relations with neighbours and other countries in the region. Yet the relationship with China, with whom India shares many economic and military characteritics, has not been the most rosy (Dormandy, 2008). India may still be suspicious of China following the Sino-Indian war and some disputes over boundaries. India has established strong economic and military relations with the U.S. and has actually made significant contributions to the U.S.-inspired War on Terror. India should have learnt that the landscape has changed from where one country could crush its enemy to one where countries which share common ideology or goals gang up against the enemy. Towards this end, joining forces with China would boost the economic and military standing of the two expansive countries. Yet the relationship between India and China has remained rather weak and India has not been most enthusiastic to better the relationship.

An important issue facing many nation-states today is globalization. Globalization has made the world much smaller and has led to a situation where many economies have opened up their economies to external competitors.  This has come with the realization that no one state is fully self-sufficient. However, globalization has also brought its own challenges. Opening up local markets to external competition has exposed the industries in many developing countries to competition from the developed world, to the collapse of the former. On the other hand, the developed world enjoys the superiority and will not allow the developing economies to penetrate their markets unless they too open up their markers to the developed economies. Many developing nations are therefore lost between opening their markets to external competition and closing them to protect their vulnerable industries.