A weakened India is trying to make friends with China again. It has already failed twice

Being burnt once apparently wasn’t enough for India’s foreign policy decision-makers because they were back trying to reset relations with China.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing in January | X/@China_Amb_India

New Delhi appears to be once again restarting a China initiative, trying to find some common ground with Beijing after several years of cold-shouldering and sharp exchanges following the Galwan Valley clash of 2020. Over the last decade, this would be India’s third attempt at making friends with China, or at least finding some basis for a civil relationship. The first two failed miserably. 

The chances that the third time will be the charm are highly unlikely. Despite the predictable chaos that US President Donald Trump is gleefully unleashing on the international order, the fundamental reasons why India’s previous efforts failed remain as true today as they were over the last decade.

The key was always the growing disparity of power with China and Beijing’s effort to leverage that to build clearly hierarchical relations with those in the region, especially nations like India that could potentially challenge its dominance. Hopefully, India’s objectives are much more pragmatic and limited this time around. 

Early mistakes 

India’s initial efforts to establish economic and trade-based relations failed because China demonstrated that outside of pleasant words, it would continue to stymie India on issues important to New Delhi. The most serious was China’s refusal to allow India entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) despite considerable pressure from both India and the US. After repeated attempts to change China’s mind, including a reported personal outreach by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China’s President Xi Jinping, India accepted that China would not budge. 

Whatever the excuse, the reason clearly was that China was unwilling to countenance the rise of another large power like India in the neighbourhood. India’s efforts to convince China were understandable because the prize was so great, even if it was ultimately unsuccessful. The Modi government itself was new and possibly the PM was overly optimistic about his powers of persuasion and maybe even naively hopeful about the state of international politics. 

These early mistakes were underlined by the Doklam crisis in 2017 when China demonstrated that it did not care very much about the state of its relations with India. Even if there were any residual doubts after the NSG fiasco and China’s undermining of India at the UN on other issues—such as listing Pakistan-based terrorists in the UN terror register—the Doklam standoff should have been some unwelcome cold water on New Delhi’s hopes. 

Unfortunately, being disappointed once apparently wasn’t enough for India’s foreign policy decision-makers because they were back trying to reset relations with China. Against all evidence, it was believed that it was India’s own actions that may have triggered China’s opposition, and that all it would take is one more push. 

This led to the famous informal summits, where the “informality” did little to soften China’s stance toward India’s pleadings. The logic of this was always suspect because there was little to indicate if China had any change in its attitude, and, even more importantly, that there was any change in the strategic circumstances that would have made China more pliable. 

It was easy to predict that this initiative would go nowhere, even if New Delhi was deaf and blind to strategic common sense. When the Galwan faceoff happened a few months later, it provided a good excuse to call off the fruitless and pointless summits. One would have hoped that this would be the end of magical realism in India’s China policy, but apparently not. 

Has anything changed that would warrant one more effort? Trump’s rampaging through the world order has no doubt upended the prevailing expectations of all countries. There is an effort in the diplomatic establishments of all countries to consider the implications of Trump disrupting the foundations on which the world order had rested for eight decades. There is a search for stability as well as new options. India’s other partners in the Indo-Pacific—such as Japan, Australia and South Korea, as well as smaller powers in Southeast Asia—are all also fumbling, as are US partners in Europe. 

Limiting losses

It is difficult to predict where the current conditions will lead, but it’s easy enough to see that some fundamentals have not changed, including India’s continuing decline vis-à-vis China. This is not an opportune circumstance to hope that China would be more forthcoming when its relative position is getting stronger. 

And if anything, Trump’s foolishness is only strengthening China. To expect that India will get any more favourable treatment at China’s hands today than at any time in the last decade is to indulge in wishful thinking. 

Of course, China’s behaviour should not be surprising. This is what great powers generally do. They exploit advantages when they get them if they have even a modicum of strategic acumen. China has not been particularly astute until now, but it is getting a second chance. More importantly, as Beijing’s position strengthens, its margin for foolishness also increases. Its mistakes and excesses have fewer consequences. Indeed, the fact that India and others are seeking China’s favour now despite their past behaviour is itself a testament to this. 

India’s options are no doubt limited, at least in the immediate future. A weakened Washington weakens India too, as it does all of the US’s partners. India’s relative weakness is thus not just the consequence of its bilateral balance with China but also of the larger dynamic of the global power position. 

Any Indian initiative with China therefore has to recognise that New Delhi is now on an even weaker wicket than before. Indian diplomacy, if it is sufficiently smart, should aim to prevent China from exploiting New Delhi’s current weakened position. 

At the same time, India can hope to build more fruitful cooperation with its regional partners in the Indo-Pacific. But weakness limits options. China is already stronger than the other Indo-Pacific powers, even when they are combined. Nevertheless, despite its relative strength, China would also hope that others in the region would not join hands against it because it increases the costs of China’s hegemonic efforts. Out of such thin gruel, India needs to fashion a strategy that above all seeks to limit further losses. Whether the self-image of India’s security managers can grasp the implications of its current predicament remains to be seen because there is another consequence of weakness: mistakes can be very expensive. 

Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.

(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)