'Thrice bitten, fourth time shy': India moves cautiously to mend ties with China
India and China, despite their shared civilizational roots and intertwined histories, remain locked in a turbulent relationship, marked by deep mistrust, military tensions, and conflicting geopolitical aspirations. Yet, the month of July has witnessed the faint stirrings of a thaw.
For the first time in five years, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar travelled to China, visiting Tianjin on July 14 and 15, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Ministers meeting. His bilateral meetings with senior Chinese leaders, including Foreign Minister Wang Yi, President Xi Jinping, Vice President Han Zheng, and CPC International Department head Liu Jianchao, have prompted the speculation: Is this the beginning of a slow rapprochement?
Jaishankar’s trip is notable not merely for its timing, but for the shadows under which it occurred. India is under growing pressure from the US and Western allies over continuing oil purchases from Russia despite sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. This, coupled with recent Western trade threats, including rumblings about tariffs and criticism of India’s possible participation in BRICS-led de-dollarisation, has left New Delhi feeling pressured by its traditional partners.
The visit also came only two months after China reportedly lent military support to Pakistan during the brief but intense India-Pakistan conflict, triggered by the terror strike in Pahalgam that claimed the lives of several Indian tourists. The fact that Jaishankar proceeded with the trip despite these developments signals a pragmatic, if cautious, recalibration in Indian diplomacy.
The delicate balancing act
The ministry of external affairs’ summary of the visit projected a deliberately low-key tone. India welcomed the resumption of the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra, commitments on hydrological data sharing for shared rivers, improved air connectivity, and a renewal of economic and cultural cooperation. Both sides affirmed the importance of SCO solidarity, multilateral trading systems, supply chain stability, and support for the Global South.
Nonetheless, beneath these platitudes, realpolitik drives the engagement. India has chafed at what it perceives as a double standard by the US—stern lectures on Russia and trade, even as Washington hosts Pakistan’s powerful army chief and flirts with strategic concessions to Islamabad. In this context, warming ties with Beijing, even tentatively, allows India to hedge, diversify its diplomatic bets, and relieve economic pressures, particularly for domestic industries constrained by ongoing restrictions on Chinese imports and investments.
Reuters added fuel to this perception by reporting that Niti Aayog, India’s premier policy think tank, has proposed relaxing post-2020 restrictions on Chinese investment, potentially allowing Chinese firms to hold up to 24 per cent equity in Indian companies without prior security clearance. This would roll back rules imposed in the wake of the May 2020 border crisis, when Chinese troops staged multiple incursions into Eastern Ladakh, leading to the deadly Galwan clashes. If adopted, this change would represent a calculated economic olive branch, even as the military standoff in Ladakh remains unresolved.
A history of fractured trust
India’s caution—its 'fourth time shy' approach—is rooted in the long, bruising arc of bilateral history. Since China’s annexation of Tibet in 1950, the relationship has lurched between camaraderie and confrontation. The euphoric “Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai” era of the 1950s, symbolised by the Panchsheel Agreement of 1954 and India’s championing of China’s international legitimacy during that period, collapsed under the weight of Beijing’s territorial ambitions. China’s secret construction of a road through Aksai Chin, its rejection of the McMahon Line, and its suppression of the 1959 Tibetan uprising—which drove the Dalai Lama to seek asylum in India—poisoned the relationship.
The tipping point came in 1962, when Chinese forces launched coordinated assaults across both Aksai Chin and the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh). India’s humiliating defeat, despite China’s subsequent partial withdrawal, scarred its strategic psyche. Beijing’s actions, framed as “teaching a lesson” by Premier Zhou Enlai, shattered any illusions of fraternal solidarity.
The pattern repeated in subtler ways over the following decades:
• Post-1963: China deepened ties with Pakistan, accepting the illegally ceded Shaksgam Valley and thereafter becoming Islamabad’s chief military benefactor, providing nuclear, missile, and conventional capabilities explicitly aimed at India.
• 1967 and 1987: Border skirmishes reignited tensions, underscoring the volatility of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
• 1970s–80s: Beijing armed and trained insurgent groups in India’s northeast, fueling instability.
• 2013, 2014, 2017: PLA incursions in Depsang, Chumar, and Doklam tested India’s resolve, with each episode raising the spectre of a repeat of 1962.
• 2020: The Galwan Valley clash, amid a broader Chinese push along multiple points of the LAC, froze relations once more.
In this context, India’s reluctance to fully embrace any 'normalisation' of ties is understandable. Past attempts at rapprochement, from Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s groundbreaking 1978 visit to the confidence-building agreements of the 1990s and 2000s, have failed to prevent fresh crises. Each engagement has been followed, sometimes within years, by new provocations.
The strategic and economic equation
Despite these fissures, trade between India and China has ballooned, peaking at over $115 billion annually, albeit with a yawning $100 billion deficit in Beijing’s favour. China remains a crucial supplier of electronics, solar components, and intermediate goods for Indian industry. This dependence, combined with the potential economic windfall of renewed investment flows, creates strong incentives for India’s business lobbies to advocate a thaw.
Strategically, however, the calculus remains fraught. China continues to:
• Modernise its military at a staggering pace, with defence spending rising from $30 billion in 2000 to $314 billion in 2020—about 1.7 per cent of GDP and the world's second largest, after the US (SIPRI).
• Fortify its Western Theatre Command, which oversees operations along the LAC.
• Expand missile bases and dual-use infrastructure across the Tibetan plateau, including airfields, railways, and highways, aimed at rapid mobilisation.
• Deepen its “all-weather” alliance with Pakistan, epitomised by the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India views as a direct encroachment on its sovereignty, given the corridor’s route through Gilgit-Baltistan.
Beijing has also blocked India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, shielded Pakistan-based terrorists like Masood Azhar at the UN, and pursued a policy of “salami slicing” through incremental territorial nibbling along the LAC.
India’s countermeasures
India’s approach to China is thus deliberately multi-pronged, blending deterrence with engagement:
• Military: India has enhanced forward deployments along the LAC, accelerated construction of border roads, tunnels, and airstrips, and modernised surveillance and rapid-reaction capabilities. It has deepened defence cooperation with the US (through foundational agreements enabling real-time intelligence sharing, interoperability and logistics support) and the Quad, conducting joint naval and cyber exercises to secure the Indo-Pacific.
• Diplomatic: New Delhi has hedged by cultivating ties with Western powers while also engaging the Global South, offering economic and development assistance to South Asian and Indian Ocean neighbours to counterbalance China’s Belt and Road footprint.
• Economic: The government is promoting self-reliance in critical sectors (electronics, solar, defence) to reduce Chinese imports, while diversifying trade relationships with ASEAN, the EU, and the US. It has also marketed India as a reliable, democratic alternative for global supply chains seeking to pivot away from China.
The road ahead
Jaishankar’s July visit does not herald a reset so much as a managed détente. The Galwan wounds remain unhealed; troops still face off at friction points in Eastern Ladakh; and China’s strategic designs, from its partnership with Pakistan to its Indo-Pacific ambitions, remain unchanged. Yet, pragmatism dictates dialogue. India seeks breathing space—to shield its economy, diversify its diplomacy, and avoid simultaneous confrontations with both China and the West.
But if history is any guide, New Delhi’s caution is warranted. From 1957’s road through Aksai Chin, to 1962’s “lesson,” to 2020’s Galwan clash, India has been burned thrice. As it tiptoes toward engagement in 2025, it does so with eyes wide open, borders fortified, partnerships strengthened, and a firm resolve: rapprochement, yes, but not at the cost of security or sovereignty.
In this high-stakes game, India’s watchword remains 'caution.' Thrice bitten in the past, a fourth time must be prevented at all costs.
The writer was Vice Chief of the Indian Army.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
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