As 2025 draws to a close, the relationship between India and China remains one of the most complex in global affairs. Professor Hemant Adlakha, an expert in India-China relations and Chinese culture, offers insights into a relationship marked by uncertainty, strategic mistrust, and competing visions for Asia’s future.
The New Normal: Compartmentalization After Galwan Clashes
For decades, China maintained a consistent approach, keeping border issues separate while promoting economic and cultural exchanges. From the 1980s until the Galwan standoff in 2020, this strategy proved successful. The two countries compartmentalized border disputes while building confidence through agreements in 1993, 1996, 2005, and 2013. Terms like “Chindia” and the “Himalayan consensus” reflected optimism about their partnership.
The Galwan clash shattered this arrangement. However, recent developments suggest cautious re-engagement. The border agreement announced by Prime Minister Modi and President Xi in Kazan last October marked progress. Modi’s visit to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, including an hour-long meeting with Xi, further signaled a thaw. These developments demonstrate that the “dragon-elephant tango” Xi spoke of remains possible even after Galwan.
Yet this comes with a caveat. The relationship has entered what Adlakha describes as a “new normal” characterized by fluctuations and profound uncertainty. Unpredictability has become predictable. Nobody can confidently predict when relations will deteriorate or improve, and this uncertainty has become a permanent feature. The complexity is such that even experts struggle to forecast whether good times or bad times will endure.
Paradox of Economic Dependence Amid Strategic Mistrust
Despite political and military frictions, China remains one of India’s largest trading partners. This creates fundamental tension: how does India manage economic dependence on a country it strategically mistrusts?
Adlakha is clear that total decoupling is neither possible nor desired. However, political tensions affect economic relations. India’s exports to China have fallen while Chinese exports to India have risen, creating a trade deficit that has grown for over two decades. Through track-two channels, China has indicated willingness to expand trade with India, but preferably through multilateral forums like RCEP rather than bilaterally.
India has shown no inclination to soften its stance. Restrictions on Chinese apps and investments imposed after Galwan remain intact. Some observers have characterized the emerging relationship as “economic competition and coexistence.” Adlakha finds this far-fetched. Indian exports to China consist largely of raw materials and have declined, reflecting deep mistrust. Several fundamental issues simmer beneath the surface, and neither side appears ready to address them candidly.
Multilateralism, RCEP, and Domestic Constraints
The debate over India joining RCEP illuminates domestic political constraints shaping foreign economic policy. In RCEP’s case, the primary concern centers on agriculture. Joining would likely disadvantage Indian farming, and the rural farming community represents a crucial vote bank determining electoral outcomes. No government wants to alienate these voters.
This explains why India withdrew from RCEP at the last minute, disappointing even close partners like former Japanese Prime Minister Abe. That reconsideration has not materialized, reflecting the enduring power of domestic calculations in shaping India’s international economic engagement.
India’s participation in various multilateral forums with China, including BRICS and the SCO, raises questions about whether these platforms help or hinder bilateral relations. Debate has been intense in both countries. In China, some commentators have suggested preventing India from SCO membership. In India, significant opinion questioned the value of continued participation.
Adlakha questions whether these constitute multilateral forums in the strict sense, reflecting broader uncertainty about whether such platforms serve as spaces for genuine cooperation or simply arenas where the two countries manage their rivalry.
The Elusive Russia-China-India Triangle
Discussion about a Beijing-Moscow-New Delhi triangle has emerged as Russia has drawn closer to China amid the Ukraine war while maintaining ties with India. Some Western scholars viewed this as an anti-Western bloc. Adlakha finds this unconvincing.
While India, China, and Russia each have grievances with the United States, they lack a common vision to bind them. Only China has been consistently firm in standing up to America. Chinese analysts doubt whether Russia will continue resisting American pressure and are skeptical about India’s willingness to sustain opposition to the US long-term.
Chinese scholars themselves harbor suspicion about Russia’s long-term commitment to an anti-US posture and lack confidence in India’s ability to sustain any meaningful opposition to Washington. China’s engagement with this triad is transactional: it aims to bring together countries and forces only insofar as it serves Chinese national interest and foreign policy objectives. Given that India’s needs vis-à -vis Russia are specific and limited (mostly defense), and China’s economic view of India is largely confined to a market, there are no solid, shared long-term economic or strategic grounds to establish an enduring, tangible relationship or “everlasting bonhomie”.
China’s approach is pragmatic. Beijing brings together countries when it serves Chinese interests but harbors no expectations of stronger alliances beyond this. Even economics doesn’t provide sufficient glue. India’s needs vis-Ã -vis Russia are specific and limited. China, especially after Galwan, views India primarily as an export market rather than a partner for technology sharing or investment.
Competing Models in the Global South
The race for influence in the Global South presents a stark contrast between India’s democratic, development-oriented model and China’s state-owned, state-led approach. China’s influence, especially through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Community of Shared Future, has been magnanimous and highly effective. China has successfully positioned itself as a champion for the economic rights of developing nations, pushing back against the developed world’s agenda and securing industrial development opportunities for Global South partners, not just raw material supplier status.
India, while a democratic developing economy, has not offered programs of a comparable scale. Its efforts to represent the rights of poorer nations often appear to be more about foreign policy posturing, making a statement rather than providing substantive, large-scale economic and developmental alternatives, making a direct comparison of influence extremely difficult. China’s approach is magnanimous; India’s is modest.
Climate Diplomacy: Intention vs Implementation
Climate change is a natural space for cooperation, yet here too, the gap between intention and implementation is striking. While there is plenty of good will for collaboration on climate diplomacy, China is demonstrably far ahead in terms of green technology and funding. The example of Beijing and New Delhi—once declared “twin cities” to address pollution, is telling: after a decade, Beijing has dramatically improved its air quality, while New Delhi’s air quality has remained stagnant or worsened. This disparity highlights that while the intent for cooperation exists, the political will and on-the-ground action needed to effect change have been lacking in the Indian context, indicating that strategic mistrust will likely spill into the climate domain, limiting any grand collaborative success.
India’s Dual Approach: Balancing or Choosing?
India’s deepening strategic ties with the United States while managing rivalry with China presents a delicate balancing act. To remain relevant to both without playing them against each other, India faces difficult choices. It must either compromise on strategic autonomy or find new sources of relevance.
If the geopolitical situation shifts from the current “confrontation” to a “collision” between the US and China, India will be forced to choose or face the difficult prospect of compromising its strategic autonomy. In such a scenario, India’s choice will likely be guided by its most pressing developmental needs: the side that offers technology and investment, areas where foreign inflow is currently low—will ultimately sway India’s decision. While choosing the US might mean sacrificing a major trading partner in China, the current lack of Chinese investment and technology transfer already minimizes what India would lose.
Currently, India receives very little foreign direct investment and technology, posing serious trouble if this doesn’t change.
The narrative positioning India as the “next China” has faded. Adlakha opines that Chinese analysts now write with confidence that “the next China will be China.” This reflects broader reality about India’s economic prospects and position in global supply chains.
Conclusion: Managing the Unmanageable
As 2025 closes, India-China relations remain defined by managed rivalry rather than sustained cooperation. The “new normal” of unpredictability appears likely to persist, with both nations navigating a relationship too important to abandon but too fraught with mistrust to truly flourish.
What emerges from Professor Adlakha’s analysis is a sobering picture of two Asian giants locked in a relationship shaped more by necessity than choice. The economic interdependence that once promised to bridge political differences has instead become another source of tension, with India’s growing trade deficit symbolizing asymmetry rather than partnership. Multilateral forums offer platforms for engagement but not genuine resolution. Climate cooperation remains aspirational. The Russia factor adds complexity without coherence.
Perhaps most significantly, both countries face external pressures that will shape their bilateral trajectory. India’s balancing act between Washington and Beijing grows more precarious as US-China dynamics evolve. China’s confidence in its economic model and global position contrasts sharply with India’s struggle to translate potential into performance, particularly in attracting investment and technology.
The question is no longer whether India and China can return to the pre-Galwan era of compartmentalized cooperation—that ship has sailed. The real question is whether they can construct a new framework that accommodates their mutual suspicions while preventing those suspicions from escalating into sustained confrontation. For now, the answer remains elusive, leaving Asia’s two largest powers to navigate an uneasy equilibrium that serves neither particularly well but may be the best both can manage in an increasingly uncertain world.
