The recent Sino-Indian border incident fits into the framework of large nations periodically 'rubbing' against each other.
What do we mean by this? Quite simply India and China are large countries with often conflicting interests but also many points of similarity.
These two large countries might never be friends of one another but at the same time it is erroneous to believe that they are competitors.
The Chinese economy is many times the size of India's and China has been able to give its citizens a much higher minimum level of development than is the norm in India.
Nevertheless the Indian strategic community is fond of considering India as the primary counterbalance to China.
This is a fallacious and dangerous belief which might lead to erroneous courses of action that may lead history to repeat itself.
Nobody is disputing the size or strengths of India but significant too are its weaknesses, most significant of which is its heterogeneity and democratic governance having largely translated itself today into misgovernance.
It is thus simplistic to believe that India is some sort of United States in Asia, it is more akin to the Austro-Hungarian empire in its diversity and the babel of languages that its citizens speak, most accurately symbolized in the various languages printed on its currency notes.
The principal significant difference is that India is democratic whereas the Austro-Hungarian empire was an autocracy.
As significant as the misperceptions of China that India harbors are the misconceptions that fester in the Chinese consciousness about India.
Foremost amongst these as the recent 'blue book' published in China under official patronage states is the belief that India faces a crisis of governability.
There is nothing new in this and India has been able to overcome such dilemmas in the past.
The danger is that such convictions together with the belief that there are Indian designs on the nationalities question in China, might prompt an aggressive Chinese posture which might prompt a similar Indian response.
It is also a fact that the Peoples Republic of China is a political anachronism in that there is nothing Communist about it nor is it a democracy.
It also has border issues with many of its neighbors and these put into question its long term intentions.
The Chinese leadership is also prone to self -aggrandizement and fondness for wealth and is representative of a corrupt oligarchy masquerading as a "Peoples Republic".
In the light of the above the recent border tensions between both nations seem ominous.
Their competing political and economic systems do not bode well for long term peace on the Sino-Indian border but at the same time their economic engagement with one another might cause at least some sections in both countries to disfavor any major future military conflict.
At the same time it cannot be denied that both countries have been engaged in major programmes of military modernization and upgrading of border infrastructure that bodes ill for long term peace on this disputed border for history indicates that nations like people get restless when they are all dressed up with nowhere to go...