China’s recent animosity towards India does not, in some ways, seem reasonable. It is, after all, economically and militarily superior and its churlish attempts to intimidate India for small parcels of worthless land at the border hardly seem rational for a nation that clearly has larger ambitions for global domination. Some answers to this quandary are to be found in a historical understanding of India’s engagement with China, dating back to the opium wars of the 19th century.