24 August 2025, NIICE Commentary 11618
Vidushi Sharma
"Nations have no permanent friends or allies; they only have permanent interests."
– Lord Palmerston
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China – P.M.’s first visit to China in 7 years –has been described as a “U-turn” in Indian-Chinese relations. Chinese state media have eagerly amplified the message of a thaw, quoting Modi’s praise of “stable, predictable, constructive ties”. The reinstatement of direct flights, the reopening of border trade, and even the reinstatement of pilgrimages have been touted as evidence that the erroneous relationship is once again on the mend. But now the question remains: is this really a reset, or just another tactical pause in a rivalry that is too entrenched to be changed?
This is not the first time optimism has surrounded a Modi visit to China. In 2015, his trip produced communiqués filled with promises of cultural harmony and economic complementarity. A decade later, the language being used looks eerily similar. What is different today is the context. If 2015 was about the exploration of new beginnings, the outreach in 2025 is about damage management. After Doklam in 2017 and the Galwan clashes in 2020, bilateral ties were at their lowest ebb for decades. The current "thaw" does not open any new ways to cooperate, but rather restores old habits, trade, travel, and symbolic acts. As India Today has observed, this is “a process, not a fling.”
The timing of this rapprochement is significant. On one hand, external pressures are shrinking New Delhi's choices. The recent decision by the United States to re-impose taxes on Indian exports has created pressure on India's trade position, opening Beijing as an additional for potential economic relief. A different development is that both sides have been able to keep these institutional mechanisms for managing crises intact. From the Special Representatives' talks to the Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination, both divisions have steadily continued various practices from their previous institutionalized frameworks that are commonly and dismissively called "talk shops," but which, faithfully believed, perpetuated habits of talking. The last ten-point consensus made during Wang Yi's most recent visit to Delhi is less a breakthrough than a continuation of that habit.
However, skepticism is justified. The root causes of discord remain unchanged. The Line of Actual Control is still militarized, with disengagement incomplete in many sectors. China's commitments to Pakistan with the Belt and Road Initiative, especially the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, continue to infringe on India's claims to statehood. Beijing continues to pressure India to accept its "One China principle," while New Delhi strengthens unofficial ties with Taiwan. These issues are not secondary irritants; they are structural fissures that can't be erased by any number of flights reinstated or trade corridors opened.
In addition, the coordination of Beijing's outreach creates ambiguity as to intent. For example, Wang Yi's parallel diplomacy in Pakistan, which occurred almost at the same time as his trip to India, manifests China's wish to juggle both South Asian rivals without favouring either side. Xi Jinping's much-publicised trip to Tibet during the same timeframe served to underscore Beijing's absolute claims to sovereignty. The timing of these gestures seems to imply that China's outreach is not about re-establishing rapprochement with India, but rather about reasserting control over terms of engagement.
The challenge for New Delhi would be to avoid being lulled into complacency. Stability may be appealing, but stability on Beijing’s terms could easily become dependency or a strategic asymmetry. That is, restoring trade while leaving the $100 billion deficit alone would actually increase vulnerability to the economy. If New Delhi welcomes “predictability” without demanding transparency on border deployments, then India risks binding itself to a reactive posture. If accepting “constructive ties” leaves sovereignty disputes ambiguously frozen, India's bargaining space could diminish incrementally. In other words, the language of stability might be something less than progress; it could become a carefully-conceived trap.
There are broader implications beyond just bilateral relations. For South Asia, a resuscitated India–China dialogue complicates Pakistan’s calculations. Islamabad, which has relied on Beijing’s strategic support, must now consider the prospect that China could balance its South Asia interests with renewed engagement of New Delhi. Smaller states—Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh- may also recalibrate their relations, potentially finding opportunity in decreased hostility between India and China. For international relations, the thaw changes the geometry of major-power competition. The United States, which is seeking to strengthen strategic ties with India, may view New Delhi's outreach to Beijing with caution if it affects the momentum of the Quad. For Europe, a less volatile India–China relationship may create more space in developing their own strategies toward China, thereby creating more alternatives to a strictly U.S.-led approach to containment.
The way forward is not to disengage but to engage more intentionally. India has to ask for codified, transparent confidence-building measures along the border, not just promises. India has to accept increased trade while simultaneously accelerating the diversification of the supply chain to mitigate dependence. Cooperative undertakings should be direct and pragmatic - like joint work on climate data or river flows - not rhetorical. Above all, India must realize that Beijing's dual-track diplomacy with Islamabad will always exist and plan for it instead of simply hoping for a sometime decoupling.
What we are seeing, therefore, is not a reset but a holding pattern. It cools the temperature, restores dialogue, and gives an appearance of stability, but does not change the structural antagonisms of the relationship. Unless New Delhi can turn this moment into real leverage - guaranteed commitments, exploited vulnerabilities, and more broadly, Indo-Pacific-oriented diplomacy - we are likely to find ourselves back in another circular pattern: another flare-up, another freeze, yet another staged thaw. For South Asia, the stakes are high; for global politics, the second-order effects are real. The measure of progress will not be whether Modi and Xi shake hands again, but whether those handshakes go anywhere beyond the dead ends they have been at for the last decade.
Vidushi Sharma is a Research Intern at NIICE and is currently pursuing her Master's in Political Science in International Relations from Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, India.
