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| (Photo: X) |
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China from August 31 to September 1, 2025, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, the first in over seven years, is a testament to both countries' resolve to accelerate the normalization of relations. The China-India relationship deteriorated sharply after the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, and the normalization process resumed following a meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 23, 2024. While analysts remain cautious about the rapprochement between the world's most populous nations, there are various reasons to argue that this rapprochement will endure.
The Factor
The U.S. allure of India, both historically and recently, has contributed to India's toughening stance toward China. This factor is diminishing, at least for now. Historically, as China-India relations began to deteriorate in the late 1950s, the U.S. jumped into the situation and started supporting India. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, with quiet cooperation from Indian counterparts, mounted a major covert operation in Tibet to support anti-Chinese activities. The U.S. also began large-scale supplies of weapons despite protests from Pakistan, which was then a U.S. treaty ally. Soon after the Sino-Indian border clashes in 1962, Washington publicly endorsed India's position on the McMahon Line. U.S. support for India vis-à-vis China persisted until the onset of the Sino-U.S. rapprochement in the early 1970s.
The second U.S. charm offensive of India started during the early 21st Century. Washington believed that India, due to territorial disputes with China, relative power, geographic proximity, and the rivalry for regional supremacy, could act to counter China's rise. Washington signed a series of defense-related agreements, making India a 'Major Defense Partner' with logistics access, secure communications, and geospatial-intelligence sharing. India adopted a more assertive stance toward China, and its strategic community and the media began portraying the U.S.-India partnership.
This framework of the U.S.-India partnership abruptly collapsed with President Trump's imposition of punitive tariffs on India and his disparaging public remarks, including labeling India a 'tariff king' with 'dead economy.' A survey of the contemporary Indian political milieu suggests that the damage has been done to an extent that even if U.S.-India relations improve, it will take time to heal the wounds. A weakened U.S.–India alignment would allow New Delhi to pursue a more autonomous and interest-driven policy toward Beijing.
Well before Trump's rude awakening, in a quarter-century of cooperation India realized that it had not gained as much as it had anticipated. Although several defense agreements allowed India access to advanced U.S. weapons and technology, this access was not without conditions. Most of the U.S. weapons were available only on a commercial basis. New Delhi also found that, when it came to high-tech joint production under AUKUS, India was effectively bypassed.
Moreover, under the partnership framework, India was increasingly pressured to align with U.S. strategic interests at the expense of its traditional strategic autonomy and non-alignment. In particular, India faced pressure regarding its decades-old friendship with Russia. India struggled to secure a waiver for its purchase of the Russian S-400 air-defense system in 2019. However, in 2025, New Delhi failed to persuade the second Trump administration to permit continued purchases of Russian oil and therefore faced 50 percent tariffs.
New Delhi also found that in the U.S. policy toward the Asia-Pacific, including toward India, the economic component was gradually sidelined. After the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during President Trump's first term, the U.S. shifted its emphasis toward strategic partnerships, urging allies to increase their defense spending. The U.S.-backed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, intended to rival China's Belt and Road Initiative, faltered early. Containment of China alone proved insufficient to sustain a robust U.S.–India partnership.
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| Indian Prime Minister Modi receives a warm welcome from members of Indian community in Tianjin, China, August 30, 2025. (Photo: Narendra Modi / X). |
Victims of Geopolitical Narratives
The notion of a Sino-Indian rivalry is more a product of geopolitical narratives than an accurate representation of their relationship. In this narrative, their commonalities are overshadowed by their disputes. Strategic and media discourses highlight the 1962 border war, the disputed boundary, and a few incidents involving casualties. A relatively small number of unpleasant incidents over decades over the complex, colonial-era disputed border, do not, represent the totality of the relationship. While the casualties in the Galwan Valley in 2020 were tragic, they were the first along the Line of Actual Control in 45 years.
The geopolitical narrative overlook their shared struggle of colonial subjugation, establishment of diplomatic relations in 1950 (India being among the first non-socialist states to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC)), and jointly launched the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Panchsheel), which provided a foundation for their early bilateral engagement and later informed the Bandung spirit and the Non-Aligned Movement. The China-India bonhomie during the 1950s was established far earlier than the Sino-Pakistani 'all-weather friendship.'
It is also overlooked that China and India were founding or key members of the G20, BRICS, and SCO. Within these institutes, both China and India played a role, among others, in building the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the 'BRICS Bank.' Similarly, they hold common views on multilateralism, alternative institutions, liberalized economies, strategic autonomy, trade in local currency, climate change, support for the Global South, calls for reform of international institutions, respect for sovereignty, and a world order in which they could play a greater role. Highlighting a large array of commonalities would dilute the overemphasis on geopolitics.
Lessons Learnt
Since the Xi-Modi summit, the pace at which China and India are taking measures to restore the pre-2020 situation reflects their realization of the significance of cooperation. Both sides have resumed border patrols, joint management of buffer zones, and high-profile visits. They are also enabling cross-border trade at designated points, preparing to restart direct flights next month, and relaxing visa requirements. Additionally, China has agreed to share emergency water data. Earlier, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar separately visited China. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to India on 18-20 August, as a special gesture of improving relations, he also held a meeting with Modi. As a diplomatic protocol, Foreign Ministers typically meet only with their counterparts, not with heads of government. Obviously, both sides learnt the significance of their ties in the few years of the freeze in relations.
Lessons for China
China is cognizant that among the U.S.'s partners in the Asia-Pacific, India holds the potential to confront China due to its geographical proximity and relative military power. Beijing also knows that despite the U.S. cozying up to India over the past quarter-century, India did not enter into any military alliance; New Delhi continued to maintain its traditional non-aligned policy and strategic autonomy.
Economically, India is a big and rapidly expanding market for Chinese goods. This neighboring market is crucial during times of uncertainty and saturated Western markets. The market forces were evident from the fact that the Sino-India trade increased during the height of tensions, rising from US$65 billion in 2020 to over US$127 billion in 2024/25. Besides exports, China relies on India for raw materials, seafood, and IT services. At a time of economic jolts triggered by Trump's tariffs and domestic economic slowdown, China would not overlook the largest market by population. Last but not least, since the Peripheral Diplomacy Work Conference in 2013, China has accorded greater importance to its neighbors in its foreign policy, including with India.
Lessons for India
For India, rapprochement with China is even more essential. While bilateral trade was heavily skewed in favour of China, and this remains one of the issues in their relations, India has relied heavily on Chinese imports for industrial goods, electronics, machinery, pharmaceuticals, and investments. India is dependent on China's supply chain to an extent that disrupting it would severely affect 'Make in India' initiative as well as increase consumer prices. China has a variety of critical technologies and materials that India needs to support its manufacturing ambitions. That's why India sought assurances on the supply of rare earths during Wang's visit. India cannot fulfil its ambitions to emerge as a global manufacturing hub without components and raw materials sources from China. Amid a fever pitch of anti-China sentiment in India, economists and major business groups such as Reliance (Ambani), Adani, and Tata have pushed the government for normalization with China.
Strategically, India's recent confrontation with Pakistan in May this year, in which India reportedly lost some of its advanced fighter jets, exposed certain military weaknesses and challenged the illusion of being able to fight a two-front war: with both Pakistan and China simultaneously. If India could not prevail militarily against Pakistan, how could it handle China, let alone both together? Normalization will reduce two-front pressure, compel China to balance its support for Pakistan, and give India time to restructure its armed forces.
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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, October 23, 2024. |
Way forward
During recent years of tense relationship, from the Galwan incidents in 2020 to the Xi-Modi summit in 2024, China and India came to recognize the strategic importance of their bilateral relationship, prompting them to adopt a more pragmatic approach to one another. This, coupled with rapid changes in the global system and increasing pressure from the U.S. on both countries, pushed them to address their issues pragmatically. Modi's visit to China in August-September to attend the SCO conference reinforced the commitment both countries had made to restore their bilateral relations to the pre-2020 phase. Analysts have also started speculating about the revival of the India-China summit-level meetings, which last took place in Mamallapuram in October 2019, and the Russia-India-China (RIC) triangle, which last convened at the foreign ministers' level in November 2021. If revived, both mechanisms would profoundly impact regional and even global politics.
While Trump's steep tariffs and erratic policies may accelerate the process, the Sino-Indian normalization is driven by their pragmatic recalibration of bilateral relations and is likely to persist regardless of how U.S. relations with either India or China evolve.
