In what might be the longest running two-country analogy, from the 1950s to this day, the development of India and China has been likened to the race between the hare and the tortoise in Aesop’s fable. The fast hare had an early start, but stumbled and lost in the end to the slow and steady tortoise. Commentators in the 1950s predicted that India’s long-term progress would prevail over China’s early lead since participatory decision-making, while slow, ensured a steady pace. These pundits were absolutely correct.From 1958-1962, during the Great Leap Forward, farmers were collectivised, or ordered off fields altogether, to build backyard scrap steel furnaces. The resulting famine killed an estimated 45 million.In what can be considered a second race in the aftermath of that catastrophic result, China moved on from rule by one strong man to governance under a strong party that, sensitive to the broad population’s interests, has facilitated a long period of stable growth. Despite these fundamental changes in China, seeing the relationship as once again cast as the Aesop’s fable is still popular in India, although the hare-tortoise analogy doesn’t resonate in China.Any comparison involving India has little to do with political systems, but economic performance, with India lacking credibility as a competitor, having shown potential to Chinese enterprises as an exciting investment destination only in the last two years.India seems forlorn in attempting to run a full spectrum race against a largely absent competitor. Other than the confrontation in shared physical boundary areas, the rivalry doesn’t raise urgent alarm in China. Despite the lopsided attention, India’s conception of a peer-to-peer Asian rivalry is not simply a grandiose belief about future power, but based on the real confidence of great achievement.Since Independence, India has been a miraculous success in building a nation in the world’s most complex and diverse continent. Success has affirmed India’s belief in its chosen path as an accomplishment for itself and its posterity, and also as the basis for triumph over China.The desire for triumph is rooted in insecurities in India’s China worldview, and driven by envy and vengeance, a set of traits China conversely does not share. In 1962, India was dealt the most humiliating defeat in the Republic’s history. In the same year, the Great Leap Forward ended, closing the most apocalyptic event in the People’s Republic history.India’s defeat carries on in a mindset to stay in a race with China, as this frames the opportunity for India to return and settle the score. China has forgotten the war. It’s retained as no more than a footnote in historical memory during a period so traumatic, there’s barely room for anything else to be stored.Emotional memories are fresh in India, recalling China’s ingratitude towards Nehru’s ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’, but forgetting the shift to victorious post-Goa aggressiveness when horns were locked.Relations have reached the lowest point in recent memory with India’s boycott of ‘One Belt One Road’ (Obor) and the staging of an intervention in Bhutan. These actions are puzzling as Obor is a vehicle for lending and investment mainly in infrastructure, India’s highest priority. What’s more, China has not increased military strength in the border area, while India has executed a large-scale buildup in the past several years.This unique Indian amalgamation -- engrafting success on defeat -- takes the form of pursuing unhealthy competition and treats participation in Obor, or softening its stance on the boundary issue, as a premature capitulation before it is proven right.India at 70 should celebrate its achievement as a blessing of its own, not as a means of beating others. India’s future success is a question of economic growth. Winning or losing depends on the ebb and flow of capital movement or disallowed deals across a boundary area that can be a crossroad or a powder keg. Winning depends on mutual cooperation, starting with escape from the outdated hare-tortoise analogy that distorts India’s self-confidence into a façade of bravado.(The writer is a Corporate lawyer in Beijing)