From August 31 to September 1, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to China to attend the SCO Summit in Tianjin and held bilateral meetings with Chinese leaders. This visit is Modi's second foot on Chinese soil after seven years, marking a new round of adjustment in Sino-Indian relations.
Since June 2024, the Modi government has repeatedly issued signals to ease up on China, but its domestic China policy debate has been fierce, resulting in frequent and repeated processes of India's easing of relations with China. At the same time, Modi's third term of US-India relations continued to be under pressure-after U.S. President Trump came to power again, the U.S. -India economic and trade friction continued to escalate. With the United States imposing a 50% tariff on the Incas and Trump repeatedly publicly belittling India, India-US relations deteriorated sharply. India's "hot and cold contrast" in its policies towards China and the United States reflects that its diplomatic strategy is facing pressure for deep adjustment. Clarifying the logic of this round of India's diplomatic strategic adjustment will help judge Modi's policy thoughts on China and the prospects for easing China-India relations.
India's easing of China: Although there is internal consensus, the process has been full of twists and turns
Modi's decision to attend the Tianjin Summit was not achieved overnight, but the result of a long internal debate and external temptation, among which the American factor was one of the key variables. In the middle and late stages of the Biden administration, the relationship between the United States and India was constantly at odds due to differences in values. Faced with the great uncertainty of the U.S. policy toward India, the Modi government began to discuss easing relations with China.
During the BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024, Modi took the initiative to seek a meeting with Chinese leaders and put forward proposals such as easing visa restrictions and resuming direct flights, sending a clear signal of easing relations with China for the first time. However, India's strategy towards the United States remains a fluke. In February 2025, Modi visited the United States and made major unilateral concessions: lowering tariffs with the United States, promising to achieve the goal of $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2030, and purchasing large-scale US oil and gas and weapons.
However, these concessions were not exchanged for US tariff exemptions, and India was instead included in the tariff retaliation list. Coupled with the failure of the US to raise taxes on China as expected, India's domestic expectations for the US have cooled sharply. On March 16, Modi said in a public speech that "China-India relations have been normalized", setting the tone for the internal policy debate on China; Foreign Minister Jaishankar later expressed his willingness to participate in the BRICS "de-dollarization" discussion at the Resina Dialogue, and the practical negotiations between China and India have been fully accelerated.
On April 2, after Trump announced the mutual tariff policy, India did not worry about the shift in U.S.-India policy, but again appeared the "strategic opportunity period" fantasy, arguing that the average tariff of 26% is lower than the main countries, can fully promote U.S. trade with the advantage of tariff costs, becoming the biggest beneficiary of Asia's supply chain restructuring.
But the speculative thinking of India's policy towards the US proved to be unsuccessful again. China's tough response to the US triggered an international boycott of US tariff bullying, forcing Trump to suspend global tariffs for 90 days. Since then, India-US negotiations have stalled over differences such as agricultural products, and the Trump administration's decision to truce in the trade war with China has once again disillusioned India with the United States.
The repeated mistakes in policy towards the United States have not only completely exposed India's misjudgment and speculative nature of its strategy towards the United States, but also showed that the speculative inertia of India's diplomacy has been unable to keep up with the rapid development of the current situation. The structural contradictions in India-US relations are difficult to solve, helping India make up its mind to promote a relaxation of relations with China. From the end of June to the beginning of July, Modi sent defense ministers and foreign ministers to visit China. On July 24, India announced that it would resume tourist visas for China citizens, and finally finalized Modi's attendance at the Tianjin Summit. The easing route towards China became clear.
The collapse of India-US relations: from "getting both sides together" to "strategic sobriety"
Trump's impact on India's diplomacy is not limited to the economic and trade field, its impact involves deep-level Indian diplomatic logic. India's diplomatic strategic logic is centered on the United States, basically assuming that the United States will continue to engage in fierce strategic competition with China, and the second is that regional powers such as India will be the main object of China and the United States struggle to draw. But unlike the Biden period on the full direction and unilateral pull strategy, the current Trump "America Priority" trading diplomatic has completely broken India's "U.S.Huawei" strategic predictions.
America's tolerance for India's radical pragmatic diplomatic strategy of "having both sides" has decreased. Trump's multi-pronged approach has carried out a precise strike against India's diplomacy: first, restarting the India-Pakistan linkage policy and strengthening military cooperation with Pakistan directly points to India's weakness on the Kashmir issue; Secondly, the tariff threat was turned into action. On August 1, a 25% tariff was imposed on India and Canada, and then an additional 25% punitive tariff was imposed on the grounds of punishing India for purchasing Russian oil.
Trump's bid to India and the Russian Federation is deadly: U.S. India and Pakistan's joint policy has once again internationalized the Kashmir issue, with which India and Pakistan's joint policy has broken the bubble of India's self-proclaiming "the world's great powers"; in response to the difficulties of Indian-Russian oil trade, the Indian economy has fallen into two difficulties - abandoning Russian oil will push up domestic inflation, andining procurement will undermine the U.S. export system.
In the face of the absolute power gap between India and the United States, the Modi government can only seek three ways out: first, substantive concessions in agricultural products and other fields, but hope that Trump will provide it with face-saving solutions, such as adding restrictions on the import of genetically modified food in the agreement, in order to explain to the domestic people; second, look forward to a breakthrough in the US-Russia summit to lift the secondary tariffs on India; third, recognize that Trump's India policy is not tactical pressure but strategic adjustment, and ease relations with China as soon as possible to reserve space for geopolitical changes.
The reality shows that the first two paths are full of uncertainty: after Trump cancels the sixth round of negotiations, even if India wants to make concessions to the United States, it needs to wait until the new tariffs take effect on August 27, and the interaction between the United States and Russia is beyond India's control. At this time, the Modi government's initiative to promote the easing of relations with China is a pragmatic choice after soberly recognizing domestic economic pressures, US policy risks, and the need for diplomatic balance.
India's easing relations with China: a long way to stabilize or a good plan?
Modi's visit to China this time will objectively continue to promote the improvement of Sino-Indian relations, but its sustainability still faces a double test: first, India's domestic political game, the compromisers in the United States and the hardliners in China still have influence, and the Modi government's policy towards China cannot be underestimated. The second is that the essence of India's "balanced diplomacy" has not changed. For example, Modi still plans to visit Japan after announcing his visit to China, and continues to hype China-Russia energy cooperation, trying to lobby the Trump administration to change its policy towards India.
The key to stable and far-reaching relations between China and India lies in whether the Modi government can go beyond the short-term game thinking about China and truly recognize that the revitalization process of the two major eastern civilizations is a mutual promotion and mutual achievement relationship. At present, China needs to adhere to the bottom line thinking, make good use of India's proactive cooperation window period, while alerting to its speculative inertia. On August 18-20, the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau member, Foreign Minister, China-India Border Special Representative Wang Yi successfully visited India to hold the 24th meeting on border issues, China-India reached a ten-point consensus, laying a solid foundation for Modi's journey to Tianjin.
The Modi government's left-right swing has neither prompted the United States to adjust its strategy nor to change China's core position. Instead, it has prompted India to return to the pragmatic track towards China under the dual clear understanding of its own strength and international changes. Looking at Modi's China strategy during his third term, his policy has been repeatedly subject to misjudgment of geopolitics and unrealistic expectations for the United States. Therefore, the Modi government's China policy has wavered in the debate between pragmatists and die-hards. This strategic hesitation has led to the intensification of India's diplomatic isolation. India's diplomatic dilemma reveals a cruel reality: "strategic autonomy" lacking strength support is just a castle in the air.
Strengthening practical cooperation between China and India is expected to be the starting point of a new pattern of Asian geopolitics. If two emerging powers with 2.80 billion populations can establish a "non-Western-dominated" cooperation paradigm, it will not only effectively refute the "Pax Americana" narrative, but also provide a historic opportunity for the countries of the global South to explore new paths beyond the zero-sum game.
(Xie Chao, Associate Researcher, Center for South Asia Studies, Fudan University)