For the Western world, this conflict, far away in the heights of the Himalayas, might seem remote. But for the almost three billion people living in China and India, it is a pivotal event. Nationalist sentiments are running high in both countries, but the border tensions are leaving a deeper mark in India, where the threat of China looms larger. New generations of Indians, who could have grown looking up to China’s economic success and might have felt more removed from the legacy of 1962, have instead been left with their own wounds. Almost half of India’s population is under 25 years of age. Instead of growing up with images of Sino-Indian cooperation, they are seeing images of conflict, which they will take with them in position of political, economic and military power over the next half century.

While distrust of China has deepened, the areas of dissension have also expanded, reaching the Indian Ocean, where every Chinese move is being watched with suspicion by India. Two years ago, there were worries that an internal political dispute in the Maldives could lead to a military conflict between Beijing and New Delhi. So much for hopes of China-India cooperation in other countries. Sino-Indian competition will only continue to expand, from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, to Africa and, ultimately, to outer space, with both countries ramping up their space programs.

What will be lost in this future of China-India confrontation is not just the tangible benefits that their cooperation could have brought, not just in Asia, but throughout the world. It is the very ideas of a peaceful Asian century and friendly cooperation between the world’s developing countries for a better future for their people. In the end, geopolitics prevailed.

The irony is that it would have been in both countries’ strategic interest to settle the border disputes and maintain friendly relations. With India as a friendly partner, almost all of China’s land border, from north, to west, to south, would be safe, and the Chinese government would be free to focus on its eastern maritime expanse, with Korea and Vietnam creating the only terrestrial worries. On the other side of the Himalayas, Pakistan would be India’s only threat, with New Delhi no longer worrying about a more powerful country pressuring it not only along 3,000 kilometres of northern border, but also in the Indian Ocean.

While China’s rise is increasingly perceived as a threat, the Western World’s main focus is on US-China tensions. The China-India conflict is seen as a sideshow to this so-called “New Cold War”. The deadly border clashes have received nowhere near the attention similar US-China tensions would have received. But while they might seem distant events, for more than a third of the world’s population, the Sino-Indian rivalry is taking center stage. And their conflict is more likely to turn deadly than Sino-American tensions.

The border dispute might have been solvable sometime at the turn of the millennium, but it has become more and more difficult to see how an agreement could be reached, because of internal political pressures in both countries. War will hopefully be avoided, at least on the short term. Because of its non-aligned mindset in foreign policy, India will probably not explicitly join an anti-China coalition and the two countries will continue to see their economic ties intensify and to cooperate in certain areas.

But strategically, it should be clear that their destiny is one of confrontation and China and India will act accordingly. As they continue to develop and increase their power, the impact of their rivalry will become global. If the first half of the 21st century will be marked by a US-China “Cold War”, it’s likely that its second half will be shaped by a Sino-Indian one. And the world is watching how Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai is slowly turning into Hindi Chini Bye Bye.