It is a measure of how far Indian politics has travelled that a Communist Party of India (Marxist) congress and the visit of the Chinese premier should be perceived as essentially unrelated events. Way back in 1964, when the unified Communist Party of India split, the CPI(M) was viewed with suspicion as the pro-China force that had refused to unequivocally support India in the context of the Sino-Indian border dispute and the war of 1962. Today, most Indian admirers of the 1991 neo-liberal turn in economic policy would prefer to berate the CPI(M) for not being sufficiently like the Chinese communist party. The standard refrain now is that India needs to emulate China in encouraging economic globalization and foreign direct investment inflows as the magic wand that can transform India into an economic super- power.

This completely misreads the Chinese economic experience, though it certainly provides self-serving justifications for India?s neo-liberal trajectory. The Chinese ?success story? (it has grossly underestimated failures and weaknesses) owes nothing to neo-liberalism and everything to the following elements. One, the fundamental transformations carried out as part of its communist past, that is, truly comprehensive land reform and sustained campaigns to eliminate mass illiteracy and establishment of a remarkably widespread public health infrastructure that is now being steadily undermined. Two, an initial emphasis, in the mid-Seventies and the mid-Eighties, on raising agricultural production and incomes ? the ?household responsibility system?.

Three, an industrial policy aimed at directing foreign capital towards export production and ensuring technology transfer. Also, promotion of domestic backward linkages in the supply of manufacturing inputs while allowing minority shareholdings for outsiders. This was a way of disciplining business while the state maintained overall control over the direction of investments. Four, disciplining labour ? supplying cheap labour, working incredibly long hours, while denying them basic democratic workplace rights.

Even as this Chinese trajectory was assuredly capitalist, it was anything but neo-liberal, except in its attitude towards workers? rights. If the Indian right and centre are mistaken in interpreting the ?success? of this experience as a validation of their own neo-liberal orientation, the CPI(M) (and CPI) are simply deluding themselves if they think China is socialist in anything but name.

But do the Chinese premier?s visit and the generational change in CPI(M) leadership represent important new possibilities, especially with respect to Sino-Indian relations? A crucial political-psychological breakthrough has clearly been made on the Indian side. For more than two decades, if not longer, it has been evident that the only feasible way the border dispute could be finally settled was for India to accept the fait accompli of the 1962 war. China had got most of what it wanted and any final settlement would now have to be based on give-and-take along the existing line of actual control. Chinese claims and attitudes towards Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were always only bargaining counters to be given up, provided India accepted that most of Aksai Chin should rest de jure, and not just de facto, with China. Dress it up whatever way you like, a final settlement would require legitimizing basic concessions by India, not China.

The Sino-Indian conflict is one that needn?t ever have taken place. China always had a reasonable case that should have been recognized but wasn?t. So what has changed to make such a final settlement not just possible but likely, now that basic political parameters for resolving the conflict have been spelt out? Above all else, it is the simple passage of time, not sudden statesmanship by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led previous government or by the current Congress-led one. India cannot get by force what it earlier lost on the ground. After 40 odd years, elite passions in India have died down over what for the most part is uninhabited and remote. Elite pride in India can now be assuaged by other insignias of self-importance such as the illusions of power provided by the bomb and second-class membership status in a revamped security council. Only that small minority within the so-called strategic community that has always insisted that China is a strategic opponent and must be treated as such, might feel disappointed at the turn of events.

But a final border settlement will not dramatically alter Sino-India relations. These will remain somewhat wary albeit more relaxed. This is because the crucial determinant of the future evolution of Sino-Indian relations is the United States of America, which both the Chinese and Indian elites are desperate not to offend. The Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, made this very clear when talking about developing better Russia-China-India ties. This is not subterfuge. It is the US that calls the shots and the dominant classes of every other aspiring major power are firmly on the defensive with regard to it. They are not just structurally locked into a globalizing capitalist order, for whose stability the US government remains the chief guardian, but they are ideologically awed by the model of power and prosperity that the US is supposed to represent. In China and India (as also Russia), elite interests and values both converge, pushing towards befriending and emulating the US.

If China, India and Russia ever move towards a strategic alliance directed against the US, it will only be as the outcome of unexpected developments. Either American power will have been decisively and considerably weakened in the coming decades because of imperial overstretch ? an overstretch that will owe little or nothing to the pusillanimous behaviour of these three countries. (Such a US decline will make the risks of establishing countervailing alliances much less, and the benefits much greater.) Or the US will prove to be so inept and arrogant in its behaviour towards all the three countries that it literally forces these otherwise reluctant elites to join up against it.

In the US-China-India triangle it is the Sino-US relationship that is paramount and it is the direction that this takes that will most shape the Indo-US and Sino-Indian relationships. The current US policy towards China reflects and combines two attitudes. One recognizes the value ? economic and political ? of making China a strategic partner. The other recognizes China?s potential as a future strategic rival. Today, and for a considerable time to come, US policy will be motivated by, and expressive of, both these attitudes. There is no such ambiguity in the Indo-US relationship. As long as either a BJP-led or a Congress-led government is in power, India will interpret or adjust its ?national interests? in accordance with US strategic needs in the region, or at worst not put up serious resistance to US perspectives it may be unhappy about. Only a left-led government at the Centre would change this.

But to challenge the BJP and Congress, the CPI(M), as its new general secretary publicly acknowledges, must make a strategic breakthrough in the Hindi heartland ? something it still does not know how to do. Traditionally, an ideologically disciplined cadre-based party pursues extra parliamentary politics even as it operates within parliament. This is a high-potential yet high-risk strategy that will polarize north Indian politics even as it can promise substantial partisan gains. The CPI(M) is not that kind of a party. So can it grow in some other way?

For two decades, north Indian politics has been dominated by lower caste assertion. To successfully hitch onto the dynamics, the CPI(M) must change its own caste profile by providing leadership access to Dalits and most backward classes through proportional representation of such groups in all leadership bodies. On its own this will not provide that strategic breakthrough but it will mark a significant step forward. It is the kind of low fuss, high impact measure that is worth trying by both the CPI(M) and the CPI. What have they got to lose?