India and China have traditionally had a very complex and complicated relationship. From ancient silk routes, medical information exchanges, the dubious cultivation of opium, modern day trade and land grab issues, it might be a real sign of the times to come, if current mutual visits are to be analysed.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China in May 2015, by his own admission, he was expecting that the already existing friendship between India and China would strengthen, and set an example in the world, of how old notions could be forgotten to give birth to new ideas and prosperity. A brave step forward, signifying that new leaderships must find new ways to bury old hatchets.

Cut to a month later, Pakistan and China inked the $46 billion CPEC agreement - the China Pakistan Economic Corridor - and found that India had expressed its concern over it. India’s objection to the CPEC was an old geo-political sore spot, because it would pass through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

CPEC would traditionally have to be viewed as regional cooperation between neighbours and should there receive support by all of its other neighbours, but ground reality was looking a little different. India was quick to say that this did not nullify any cooperation and sentiment between India and China who both wished to see the Asian continent rise in mutual progress together. This signified a positive change in India’s leadership approach which had, in previous years, sometimes been labeled as unclear.

However, neither country nor their leaders, can shy away from the fact that old habits die hard. India and China have always had a blow hot-blow cold relationship. While the two neighbours have had trade and cultural relations for centuries, both being part of the Silk Road, there’s been a volatile shift in attitude and policy in the later centuries. From a ‘Hindi Chini bhai-bhai’ slogan, sponsored by India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru - an astute leader and exemplary first Prime Minister to independent India - to two major conflicts between India and China in 1962 and 1967, and recent jabs and parries between the two nations, it is hard to tell when the two nations are sharing a friendly cup of tea and when they are sparring.

Any mother to two talented children will tell you that both her children are friends as well as rivals. Such is the case for India and China as well. If only acceptance of this fact would be more wide-spread, the two giant economies could actually accomplish much more than they do in the theatre of Asian business.

While trade booms and flourishes between them, with more Indians going to China than ever before (over 600,000 in 2013-2014) it looks like the economic balm is soothing old wounds. But scratch the surface a little, and it is anyone’s guess what realities will be revealed. The solution to this fragile friendship clearly seems to be within the grasp of both its current premieres as they journey back and forth in search of better leadership for the region.

Any mother to two talented children will tell you that both her children are friends as well as rivals. Such is the case for India and China as well. If only acceptance of this fact would be more wide-spread, the two giant economies could actually accomplish much more than they do in the theatre of Asian business. The two neighbours have signed deals worth $222 billion in recent times, on the heels of each other’s PM’s visits. But again, realisation of business goals has been slow in the coming.

In 2010 the goal was to take the volume of bilateral trade to US$100 billion by 2015. This has not happened. In 2014, bilateral trade was only at US$71 billion, which was less than the business China was doing with other countries like South Korea, the US and Taiwan. More deals in education, railway infrastructure, renewable energy, ports, financing, telecommunications and film were signed. China’s economy when compared to India, sheds some light on the imbalance between the two. China’s economy of US$9.2 trillion was almost five times larger than India’s US$1.9 trillion in 2013. China is India’s biggest trade partner but India does not even feature in China’s top ten trade partner list. But the IMF has stated that India’s economy will grow at a faster rate (6.5%) than China’s (6.3%) in 2016. Also, India’s finance minister has claimed that India will overtake China with an economic growth of 8%.

With selfies being the order of the day during the visits, what emerged quietly but surely was a soft power rivalry. China wants India as an ally against the US fostering any anti-China moves. India’s relations with Japan, Vietnam, Australia and the US are firming up well, but paradoxically, to counter China’s growing influence and perceived aggressiveness. The impressive trade deals can soften the rivalry and sweeten the approach, but old disputes are making this a little tough to achieve, as the Siachen Glacier, Pakistan, Kashmir, the Dalai Lama and geographical incursions into India, all play a role. If India and China truly want to herald a new friendship, it will have to agree to let sleeping dogs lie and focus on a strictly business policy.

2015 and 2016 will be telling years, if their two leaders can hammer out a framework that will reverse years of mistrust and bring about a new political friendship that will benefit both, India and China.