India-China ties: Tactical easing or strategic thaw? Wang Yi in Delhi for talks on border and bilateral issues

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be holding a range of meetings on his three-day visit beginning Monday. Wang will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar, join National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in the 24th round of boundary talks, and also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the latter’s China visit for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting next month.

There is unlikely to be any breakthrough in the boundary talks. It has been a long-winding talks between the negotiators of the two countries. Wang is visiting India for the 24th round of the Special Representative (SR) talks on the India-China boundary question with NSA Doval, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Wang and Doval are the SRs of China and India respectively to address the question of the undemarcated boundary of the two countries.

Meanwhile, experts Firstpost spoke to warn against hyping the recent bilateral visits and China’s remarks on the US tariffs announced recently by President Donald Trump. They say the India-China relationship remains far from normal as China’s anti-India campaign shows no sign of stopping.

In recent weeks, developments like the resumption of the Kailash-Mansarovar yatra, the resumption of visas to Chinese tourists, and the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, have produced commentary that the India-China ties are on an upward trajectory.

As these developments came at a time when India-US relations nosedived, commentators said that India and China have not just improved their ties but have been forming a bloc to take on the United States. But experts say India and China don’t seem to be working on forming a bloc to counter the US.

The resumption of Kailash yatra and visa indicate a tactical easing, not a strategic thaw, as these are low-cost gestures for China that help project an image of normalisation, says Eerishika Pankaj, a scholar of China and the Director of Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA).

“However, these steps do not address persistent strategic antagonisms, most notably the boundary disputes, trade imbalances, and underlying mistrust that continue to define the India-China relationship. To call these developments a ‘partnership’ would be misleading. What we are witnessing is more transactional than transformative,” says Pankaj.

Chinese opposition to India rules out any alignment

Beyond such headline-making developments, the fact remains that China continues to undermine India at every step and that rules out any India-China alignment.

Consider these: China has continued to block rare earth supplies to India even as it has resumed supplies to other countries, it has also blocked the supply of speciality fertilisers to India, and has reportedly blocked Chinese engineers from working in mobile factories in India in a bid to stop Indian factories ramping up domestic manufacturing. Besides, China continues to support Pakistan in its anti-India campaign despite taking an official stand of opposing terrorism in all forms.

“Steps like resumption of visas and flights are largely for optics. China’s continued economic and strategic coercion, including blocking critical imports and standing firmly with Pakistan, shows the structural antagonism remains. These actions reinforce that the underlying relationship remains tense and structurally adversarial. While optics might offer temporary diplomatic cover, they do not dilute the entrenched mistrust or competition at play,” Pankaj tells Firstpost.

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Such Chinese antagonism means that suggestions that India could align with China to revive the ‘RIC’ platform to tackle Trump’s tariffs seem a little far-fetched. Though the India-US relationship has taken a hit, Pankaj says the RIC format “simply does not align with India’s current strategic priorities, particularly given growing divergence with both Russia and China on key issues”.

Pankaj further says, “There is scant evidence of substantive momentum for RIC’s revival beyond rhetorical or social media expressions. For India, meaningful partnership within RIC remains, at best, a peripheral tool — not a central strategy for growth or security. Beyond diplomatic dialogue or regional advocacy, there is no credible economic output from meaningful revival.”

Where are India-China ties headed to?

While there has been progress in India-China ties, such as the last year’s partial resolution of the Ladakh standoff and the resumption of political engagement at the top level, the India-China relationship remains uneasy and complex.

The Chinese support to Pakistan during the post-Pahalgam four-day military has been duly noted by Indian government. Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh, the deputy army chief, called China the backdoor adversary in the conflict.

It was not just Chinese warplanes, missiles, and air defence systems that were stacked against India, Singh said that China was providing real-time intelligence to Pakistan. The situation was such that even though the conflict was limited to one border, India was facing three adversaries — Pakistan, China, and Turkey.

In such circumstances, the India-China ties in the near future will likely exhibit managed hostility, which will involve selective engagement on low-risk fronts with persistent barriers in security, trade, and diplomatic spheres, says Pankaj, the Director of ORCA.

Can developments, such as Trump’s anti-India campaign, bring India and China closer? Pankaj says that unpredictability injected by Trump “could add volatility but are unlikely to upend the fundamental nature of rivalry and the bilateral framework will potentially remain defined by both tactical engagement and the hard realities of unresolved disputes”.

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The differences between India and China are simply too many for the two nations to come on the same platform irrespective of Trump’s tariff war.

Moreover, Trump is barely an irritant to China as he has essentially admitted defeat in the trade war. In fact, with 50 per cent tariffs on India, attempted meddling in the Kashmir issue, and undermining India on Operation Sindoor, Trump could actually be benefitting China. His other actions, such as withdrawal from global institutions, and the suspension of the foreign aid, have also aided China. Many in China see this as an opportunity to deepen its global footprints and dominance, with experts suggesting that Beijing has no immediate incentive to join hands with India to launch a joint pushback against Trump.

Instead of an alignment with China, India is recalibrating its engagement strategies, placing greater emphasis on autonomous diplomatic and security networks while maintaining avenues for Quad-style collaboration, recognising that US involvement may oscillate with political cycles, according to Pankaj.

As Trump shakes the reliability of the United States as a long-term ally, Pankaj says India should join hands with the likes of Japan and Australia, with whom India already has robust bilateral and trilateral frameworks independent of US sponsorship, and double-down on diversified arrangements in the Indo-Pacific.

India for long has pitched its foreign policy on the principle of strategic autonomy. New Delhi is likely to continue as Trump pushes the world to realignment and China waits to exploit new opportunities emerging from this realignment.

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