In December 2010, on the final day of his three-day India visit, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao offered a metaphorical vision for bilateral ties, suggesting that “the dragon and the elephant should tango”.
The analogy – dragon for China, elephant for India – had already circulated in Western academic and media circles as a comparative frame. With Wen’s remark, it formally entered China’s diplomatic lexicon.
Over the past 15 years, through cycles of border tensions and uneasy resets, China’s aspirational animal analogy has remained a peacetime constant: leaders float it, state media amplifies it and the pattern repeats with clockwork regularity.
India, however, has declined to take up the rhetorical offer – on the dance floor or off it.
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Xi Jinping urges SCO summit members’ cooperation and the setting up of a development bank
