We live in a world of constant flux. Nations, over time, discover a variety of reasons – geopolitical or otherwise – to become friends or foes, based on their national interests. China-India relations aren’t immune from this truism. The trend in the past decade has seen the two neighbors embracing each other and then falling out. And after years of bickering and contestation, the time has come again for them to explore yet another round of engagement.
Is the current rapprochement merely opportunistic and temporary? Or is it geared toward a long-term solution of their contestations driven by extraneous factors and geopolitical uncertainty?
On July 23, the 34th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs took place in New Delhi. The meeting discussed issues relating to strengthening border management and maintaining calm along their contested border. More concrete discussions on the “boundary question” are expected to be held when the special representatives of both countries meet for the 24th time later this year.
Also on July 23, India announced that it would resume issuing “tourist visas” for Chinese nationals, which had been halted for the past five years. This is India’s way of restoring normalcy, after China gave its nod to the resumption of the religious Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, which has its final destination in Tibet.
Over the past 10 months, leaders and high level officials of both countries have met on several occasions to erase the thick cloud of enmity and distrust that has a decades-long history, but was sparked most recently by the border standoff. A 2020 clash in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers.
The standoff has eased somewhat thanks to non-transparent disengagement understandings, which Indian opposition parties have criticized as India ceding its territory to China. Nevertheless, the Line of Actual Control that serves as the boundary between the two has remained peaceful, more or less incident-free. It has even witnessed occasional episodes of bonhomie, with troops exchanging sweets. More positive confidence-building measures, such as the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, are on the way.
While the intention to reset China-India bilateral relations seems real, both the drivers and the outcomes need a careful analysis.
Keeping its borders safe and maintaining stable relations with China are India’s foreign policy priorities. It isn’t hard, therefore, to fathom that its recent moves toward normalization are linked to a sense of disillusionment with the United States. The Trump 2.0 administration’s foreign policy gestures in the initial five months have watered down New Delhi’s hopes of strengthening India-U.S. ties. India’s ambition to be the first nation to conclude a trade agreement with the United States hasn’t materialized; both nations are still engaged in negotiations, even after the U.S. has managed to clinch deals with the U.K., Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines. Trump’s commitment to the Quad doesn’t appear to be as strong as during his first tenure, and that has been a source of disappointment to New Delhi, which is scheduled to host the Quad summit this year.
Trump’s public claim to having brokered India-Pakistan peace after a hot war in May has been a source of an embarrassment to the ruling party in India, which insists that bilateral talks ended the conflict. The Trump administration’s pro-Pakistan steps – including inviting its military chief to the White House – have not amused New Delhi.
The policymaking community in New Delhi is no longer certain to receive support from the United States in case of a conflict with China. The high-pitched optimism of the past regarding India’s strategic ties and partnership with the U.S. has started giving way to murmurs of uncertainty. New Delhi is no longer sure if it can manage to evade negative American attention and possible sanctions for its continued dealings with Russia for crude oil and Iran for its Chabahar port. New Delhi’s neat balancing act, on which it prided itself, has come under immense stress.
Moreover, the U.S. demand that India and China stop buying Russian oil and Trump’s repeated threats against the BRICS, of which both India and China are members, may also have spurred an aggrieved sense of unity among China and India. Trump’s “America First” policy has apparently clubbed India and China together, giving rise to speculations about a firming up of China-India-Russia unity.
That, however, could be an overstretch of the imagination. Geopolitics contains unknown possibilities, but is certainly not without its limits. In contemporary history, India and China are divided by too many irreconcilable differences.
For instance, China’s friendship with Pakistan is a huge obstacle for India to overcome. Beijing’s close military cooperation with Islamabad during the India-Pakistan conflict in May didn’t please New Delhi. India’s constant anxieties of being encircled by China and its proxies were accentuated by the China-Pakistan-Bangladesh trilateral held in Kunming on June 19. As ties between Dhaka and New Delhi have worsened, the former has reached out to China for economic investment as well as military cooperation.
A similar trilateral between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan was held in Beijing on May 21, focusing on Kabul’s yearnings to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a project India opposes as non-transparent and a challenge to its territorial integrity. Moreover, New Delhi has reasons to believe that China is trying to mend the frayed ties between the Taliban and Islamabad in order to checkmate India’s growing profile in Afghanistan.
On the border issue, India seems to seek an accelerated solution. India’s defense minister hinted at this during his trip to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization defense minister’s meeting in June. However, he was quickly repudiated by the Chinese spokesperson, who referred to the boundary problem as “complicated” – hence it would “take time to settle it.”
And then there are a plethora of issues such as Tibet and the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama; China’s start of construction of world’s largest hydropower dam on Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet; and China’s ban on exports of rare earth minerals and specialized fertilizers to India. Some of these issues can be overcome by diplomacy and negotiations. But others are rooted in factors such as deep distrust and irreconcilable ideas about one another’s place in the rapidly changing global order and shifting regional alliances.
Even while spurred by Trump’s policies, cutting through those hard rocks of distrust, especially in the face of China’s obdurate outlook, may prove to be a real challenge for a long-lasting rapprochement between the two major Asian powers.