After India announced on October 21, 2024 that it had reached an agreement with China on withdrawal of troops and resumption of patrolling in the Depsang and Demchok areas in Eastern Ladakh along the LAC, a process of renewed dialogue began. The agreement was reached a day before the BRICS summit began in Russia. For five years, there had been no meeting between India and China at the leaders’ level. China agreed to this decision after long dithering when it was convinced that India had reverted to its “strategic independence” from its deep reliance on the USA earlier and its rapprochement would help her in its long-term rivalry with the USA.

An immediate payback of this initiative was the high-level meeting held between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping in Kazan on October 24 on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. Modi told Xi that “peace, stability, mutual trust and respect were crucial for bilateral relations” (his emphasis being on maintaining peace and stability on the borders). Xi responded that they should “strengthen communication and cooperation, resolve conflicts and differences and realise each other’s development dreams.” China wants India to be more forthcoming on the trade and investment issues and be more neutral on issues relating to peace and security in Tibet, South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and East Asia.

This basic divergence explains the differences in the perspective of the two countries. The unresolved and militarised borders require India to divert its precious resources to regularly patrol the LAC in difficult mountainous areas all around the year. Since the terrain on the Chinese side is flat and infrastructure well developed, it is easier for China to do the same.

Through its insistence that status quo ante of April 2020 must be restored, India has made it clear that it would not accept any intrusion and seizing of the Indian territory by China in future and peaceful and stable borders would be a sina qua non for a normal relationship (in simple words, “the state of the border will determine the state of the India-China relationship”, as EAM Jaishankar has put it).

There have been several high-level meetings between the two countries since then, including those of the EAM with Chinese Foreign Minister and Politburo Member Wang Yi (November, 2024 and July 2025), the NSA with Wang Yi, China’s Special Representative (SR), on the border issue, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with his Chinese counterpart and the Foreign Secretary with senior Chinese officials. The two countries have focused on several low-hanging fruits for improvement of ties, such as the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra (the first batch of pilgrims left in June 2025), data-sharing on trans-border rivers, direct flights, more visas and media exchanges.

The importance of these exchanges has been obscured by certain negative developments. China took a stronger stand in favour of Pakistan on the massacre of 26 civilian tourists at Pahalgam on April 22, 2025 which has not gone well with India.

Also, there were reports of China planning to supply 40 J-35 fifth generation stealth fighter jets to Pakistan by the end of 2025. The export of advanced generation of fighter aircraft to Pakistan will again be looked negatively by India.

On the trade side too, China has taken certain actions which suggest that it is not happy with India’s economic progress. These include creating obstructions in the export of lithium battery technology, tunnel-boring equipment and recalling its engineers from a Foxconn site in India to manufacture iPhones. China has been deeply unhappy with Apple’s move to manufacture some iPhones in India.

India has allowed a large volume of Chinese exports though it is faced with a huge trade deficit and there have been complaints against the imposition of non-tariff barriers by China against Indian export items, such as pharmaceuticals and IT products.

Modi has made it clear that “mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity” would guide India’s approach to its relations with China. India expects China to address its concerns on border and trade issues, otherwise, the normalisation process would not yield the desired results. On the borders, India expects that the agreement on disengagement should lead to de-escalation and demilitarisation, with both sides removing troops from the forward positions, where the situation remains tense. These issues would be addressed in the meeting of the senior representatives on the boundary question in the near future.

China has a habit of viewing its relationship with India through the prism of its asymmetry with India in the power matrix and India’s relationship with the US. Both these frames do not guide India’s policy towards China. Even if India is relatively weaker, it will not accept China’s dictation in its policies, just as China never accepted the dictates of the US, a relatively much bigger power. Similarly, India stubbornly refused to accept China’s occupation of its territories after its intrusion in eastern Ladakh in April 2020.

Secondly, India is negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement with the US. Both countries have forged close ties in economic, technological and military fields. The Quad is here to stay and during its recent meeting in Washington in July, 2025, it adopted much stronger references against China’s aggressive and threatening conduct in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific. India’s economy is growing much more rapidly than that of China and it is becoming far more attractive to many countries as a large market, growth of India’s big defence sector and cooperation with its professional armed forces.  India has plenty of friends and numerous options even if it is relatively less strong than China in certain fields.

The India-China relationship can deliver best results if both countries are alive to each other’s interests and sensitivities and try their best to accommodate these. Otherwise, the normalisation of relations would stutter marring hopes for delivery of good outcome.