NOT LEAST because Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Chinese leaders hosting him this week in Beijing represent a third of the world's population, their pledges of peaceful cooperation come as a welcome display of moderation and good sense.
These two rising Asian powers have their quarrels, including an unresolved border dispute, clashing political philosophies, and suspicions about each other's strategic intent. But precisely because their differences are serious, their carefully managed dialogue is a model for governments in other, conflict-ridden parts of the world.
Singh was no doubt seeking to tamp down Chinese anxieties about India's blossoming partnership with the United States when he told a think tank in Beijing that the aim of Indian policy is "to give us strategic autonomy in the world." He made it clear that India's pending nuclear deal with Washington need not preclude cooperation on nuclear energy with China as well.
Singh's message was that, for governments seeking to lift people out of poverty, international relations need not be a zero-sum game. This is what he meant when he said, "Independence of our foreign policy enables us to pursue mutually beneficial cooperation with all major countries of the world."
Singh's premise is one that President Bush, and his successor, ought to encourage and emulate. If today's most dramatic economic success stories are in Asia, the reason is that Asian leaders grasped two lessons. One is that participation in the global economy opened a path out of the direst poverty; the other is that fixating on old antagonisms could only bar the way to peaceful economic development.
China and India have hardly ceased worrying about each other's intentions. Just as Beijing fears that India's deepening ties with the United States are part of a strategy of containing China, India sees Beijing's ever-stronger presence in neighboring Burma, Tibet, and Pakistan as an encroachment. Despite these worries - indeed, to overcome them - Singh and Chinese leaders agreed this week to increase their burgeoning trade links and conduct joint military exercises later this year.
Singh did strike one egregiously off-key note. Siding with China in refusing to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said, "The rights of our people to a fair chance to improve their lot cannot be abandoned because of environmental damage caused by others." The people of India and China will suffer if their governments fail to do their part in preventing calamitous climate change.
Plenty of skillful statecraft was on display this week. If India and China use the same careful approach to address - not ignore - all the diplomatic, economic, and political challenges created by their rapid growth, the whole of humanity will benefit.
