“Strategic clarity is not about ignoring friction; it is about managing it while safeguarding national interests”
The discourse surrounding India-China relations is often caught between the extremes of inevitable confrontation and optimistic reconciliation. However, the reality on the ground is a sophisticated “cautious re-engagement”—a strategic management of competition in an increasingly turbulent global order.
In my recent interview with an Italian international journal World Geostrategic Insights, I delve into why the 2025 “Tianjin Reset” between PM Modi and President Xi is more than just diplomatic optics. We explore the “special problem” India faces with its northern neighbor—a complexity that transcends trade and enters the realm of unsettled borders and collusive threats.
Key themes we discussed:
- Economic Necessity vs. Strategic Trust: Why the resumption of direct flights is a pragmatic move amidst a persistent trust deficit.
- The Ladakh Standoff: Moving from disengagement to the harder task of de-escalation.
- The “Collusive Threat”: Analyzing the unique security paradigm of facing two nuclear neighbors with unsettled borders.
- Global Multipolarity: How India-China ties are being reshaped by US-China tensions and the Russia factor.
Read the full interview here: 🔗 Sino-Indian Relations: A Cautious Reset Amidst Complexity
Reproducing the full text below:-
Interview of Major General Dr S B Asthana by World Geo-Strategic Insight, Italy, on India China Reset
World Geo-Strategic Insight
India and China have resumed direct commercial flights for the first time in five years, signalling an improvement in relations after years of diplomatic and military tensions. Both countries have also engaged in various other measures to enhance relations, including frequent high-level visits between Indian and Chinese officials. In particular, the August 2025 meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin was widely seen as a potential “reset” of Sino-Indian relations. What is your opinion? Has a new phase in China-India relations begun?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
The developments which you have indicated in the first part of the question certainly indicate a reset after a long period of standoff on the borders and resultant tensions, but it is a limited in scope and can be better termed as cautious re‑engagement and mutually beneficial management of relations in a turbulent geopolitical world, studded with unresolved elements of mistrust.
The direct flights were frozen between the two countries during the outbreak of COVID-19 and remained frozen thereafter due to border standoff in Ladakh between the two countries. Before both these events, the direct flights were in place despite the differences between both countries. As China is the second largest trading partner of India, the resumption of flights is an economic necessity and ease of human mobility for both countries. Revoking visa curbs and enhanced official level exchanges indicate the desire to move forward in mutually beneficial areas. These steps are continuation of earlier moves in 2025 such as easing visas curbs and expanding official‑level dialogue mechanisms, which collectively point to a deliberate desire to have workable relations, reset to the benefit of both countries.
At Tianjin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi presented both nations as “development partners, not rivals,” agreeing that disagreements shouldn’t turn into conflicts and that border management is necessary to restore broader collaboration. The “reset” you referenced in your question is indicated by this terminology as well as Chinese actions like relaxing some export restrictions, acknowledging LeT as a terrorist group (which was previously avoided), and India’s readiness to reopen connectivity.
However, few core divergences remain: the LAC is still undemarcated, standoffs in Ladakh has seen disengagement but not de-escalation, and China’s military support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor and via CPEC continues to be a concern for Indian security. China’s “String of Pearls” strategy and India’s continued perception of BRI initiatives like CPEC and CMEC as part of their larger “concirclement” strategy are examples of the ongoing strategic competition in South Asia and the Indian Ocean.
The engagement in 2025, therefore can best be described as “cautious re‑engagement” or “careful reset”, emphasising that economic interdependence is being rebuilt despite mutual suspicion. Both sides seem to be seeking breathing space amid US tariff pressures and global uncertainty.
Yes, this a new phase in a limited sense that both countries have moved from standoff and resultant diplomatic freeze toward calibrated coexistence: more flights, more talks, more trade facilitation, and high‑level signalling that crisis management is a priority. But this phase is best described as “managing competition with engagement” rather than reconciliation.
In practical terms, India is likely continue on the dual track: strengthening border infrastructure and strategic partnerships (Quad, Indian Ocean posture) while engaging China where interests converge, especially on trade and multilateral issues. China, on the other hand, seems to be attempting to avoid confrontation with both the US and India at the same time, taking advantage of this chance to consolidate its periphery while maintaining influence on borders and in the neighbourhood.
Watch the video analysis and commentary as a presentation of mine at Centre of Joint Warfare Studies, India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0a4GJFb7wo
World Geo-Strategic Insight
Historically, Sino-Indian relations have oscillated between cooperation, competition, and confrontation. In August 2024, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar noted that several countries around the world have difficult relations with China, but India has a “special problem with China that goes beyond the general problem that the world has with China.” What is India’s “special” problem with China? What makes relations between the two countries so complex?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
Although Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar’s remarks of August 2024, which you quoted in your question were in response to a query related to scrutiny of Chinese investments in India, but let me amplify and expand my response. Many countries in the world face a China problem related to trade imbalances, dubious investments, aggressive behaviour, opaque deals, debt traps, unfair deals under BRI, incremental encroachment of territory, cyber and other non-kinetic threats as part of ‘Grey Zone Warfare’ and India is also one of them facing some such problem.
The ‘special’ problem is that India is the only country in the world, which faces a threat from two nuclear neighbours (China and Pakistan), both have unsettled border with India and both are in collusion with each other. The unsettled border has led to 1962 war and many military standoffs subsequently, a situation which no other country faces. There is a trust deficit between the two countries, despite working relationship, the trajectory of which has seen frequent ups and downs. Chinese reluctance to demarcate LAC has a high political cost too making the relationship a complex one. Chinese annexation of Tibet has made it an upper riparian and a major source of water, which it uses as a strategic leverage at times. China is trying to make strategic inroads in South Asia and Indian Ocean, creating a competition in influence over this region with India. Its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative is a direct threat to Indian sovereignty.
In addition China is the second largest trading partner of India and largest supplier of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and key intermediates for Indian pharma sector on which its status as major generic drug exporter depends. Being the global factory China remains major supplier of critical intermediate goods, technologies and rare earth minerals/magnets to India, which is crucial for Indian supply chain. Therefore despite unresolved border issues and China being a potential threat, it’s an inescapable partner on which the speed of Indian growth engine depends.
While India continues to make efforts to become self-reliant and continues to explore alternatives to Chinese dependencies but there are not enough reliable alternatives globally. To summarise, India’s “special problem” includes having to collaborate, compete, and repel a strong neighbour that challenges its borders, limits its influence in the region, but is crucial to its supply chains. Due to the close overlap of geography, security, and commerce, Sino-Indian relations are especially complicated when compared to China’s relations with most other large nations.
World Geo-Strategic Insight
How important is the long-standing and unresolved territorial dispute over borders in shaping relations between India and China? What are the key political compromises required by both nations to move from disengagement to a permanent delineation of the Line of Actual Control (LAC)?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
The resolution of border issue is the basic pre-requisite for normalisation of relations between China and India. The unresolved border remains the single most important obstacle in China-India relations because it’s directly linked to territorial integrity, national sentiments and military posturing, impacting every other domain of bilateral engagement. It creates a deep security dilemma, where each country views the moves of other from the prism of a potential loss. The border problem gets so complicated because Chinese insist on absence of any written border Treaty between China and India, as they selectively choose not to recognize any treaty between Tibet and British India (like McMahon Line) in Indian context, after annexing Tibet. The varying perception of LAC at many points leads to transgression and patrol clashes, further complicating the resolution process.
There is a variation in approach of both countries in pursuing bilateral relations. India treats “peaceful resolution and tranquillity” on the border as the foundation for the overall relationship, while China doesn’t want tying the whole relationship to the boundary question, thereby pursuing economic and other engagements, postponing border resolution.
It is often mentioned that China has resolved its border dispute with 12 out of 14 countries, however Chinese argue that it was done on give and take principle. Since the border is linked to sovereignty, territorial integrity, national identity, and sentiments in the China-India equation, leaders on both sides have dug their heels to their respective positions, which are unlikely to change anytime soon because they don’t want to be perceived by their domestic audience as ceding territory, which raises the political cost of giving anything. It is unlikely that domestic constituencies on either side will accept demands that China return Akshaichin or that India surrender Tawang. Because of this, discussions about border resolution are still ongoing and frequently result in new border management measures to prevent escalation and maintain peace and tranquilly along the LAC, well short of resolution.
In my opinion, permanent delineation of the LAC) is doable, however, it entails political compromises by both sides. China will have to acknowledge that stable ties with India require treating the border as a core concern and agree to a mutually acceptable, map‑based clarification of the existing LAC to remove threat of “incremental encroachment”. It will have to institute confidence building measures like reducing forward deployments, halt salami‑slicing efforts, and be amenable to trade some tactical advantages for peace and tranquillity along LAC. China needs to honour Indian concerns on projects like CPEC in Pakistan‑occupied Kashmir by offering legal or political assurances that such infrastructure will not be used to undermine India’s sovereignty claims. To my mind this will happen only, when the political/strategic cost of not doing so will increase for China, in comparison to doing so.
However, India may eventually have to acknowledge that China is unlikely to give up its gains in Aksai Chin, where it already has effective control, and come to an agreement on phased disengagement and de-escalation, simultaneous force withdrawal, and revised confidence-building measures—all without abandoning the idea that the LAC must be made clear on both maps and the ground. In order to advance trade, connectivity, and people-to-people linkages while negotiations are ongoing, it will need to pursue broader functioning economic and diplomatic relationships from immediate maximalist border expectations.
To proceed from disengagement to delineation, both countries need to speed up talks under existing mechanisms (WMCC, Corps Commander talks, SR‑level dialogue) into a time‑bound political process explicitly mandated to finish disengagement, agree on de‑escalation and exchange and verify LAC maps sector by sector. Both need to implement new confidence‑building measures that cover not only troop movements and patrolling rules, but also other new instruments of war like drones, cyber, information operations and infrastructure build up along the LAC, with credible verification mechanisms.
Most significantly, in order to lower the political cost of the governments for mutual accommodation, both nations will need to raise public awareness and cultivate realistic domestic opinion through debates, talks, and conversations beyond victory/defeat narratives. Essentially, both China and India must trade some territorial ambiguity for a politically viable solution based on reciprocity and partial tolerance instead of insisting on unilateral gain in order to move from mere disengagement to permanent LAC delineation.
World Geo-Strategic Insight
How does the shifting economic centre of gravity towards the Indo-Pacific affect traditional security alliances, and what role India plays in establishing a new stable, multipolar system?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
The economic centre of gravity and, thus, the strategic relevance are rapidly moving from the West to the Indo-Pacific region if we examine the growth trajectory of the major economies. This is justified by the rise of China, India, and numerous Southeast Asian nations, which also compels Western powers to look outside the Euro-Atlantic. Following World War II, the US-led West and the USSR engaged in strategic competition, which led to the formation of traditional security alliances like NATO. This contestation continued as Cold War 1.0. Logically, it should have ended with the dissolution of the USSR, but the western powers kept it going by moving eastward, which, among many other reasons, led to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The rise of China triggered another Big Power Contestation between USA and China referred as Cold War 2.0, which continues even now, along with Cold War 1.0. The idea of Indo-Pacific is a direct result of Cold War 2.0 along with shift in economic centre of gravity to Indo-Pacific. It has therefore increased the importance of various groupings/alliances related to contestation in Indo-Pacific like AUKUS, Five eye, Defence Pacts of USA with Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan Relation Act related to West and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) and other regional groupings related to Non West. The trend seems drifting from rigid defence structures like NATO towards expansion of regional groupings and flexible partnerships. In Indo-Pacific, the trend is towards flexible partnerships to keep Indo-Pacific free and open and prevent threats to rule based order getting challenged not only in Indo-Pacific but in other parts of the world too.
India is in a unique position of being the fastest growing economy, large consumer market, strategically located along vital sea lines of communication in Indian Ocean, having good relations with West as well as Non West and has requisite strategic autonomy to resist forming part of any bloc or be anti-West/anti any bloc. It avoids any formal alliances but practices “multi‑alignment”: deepening security through strategic partnerships. It is part of Quad with USA, Japan, Australia as well as part of SCO, BRICS, BIMCTEC and other regional groupings and a prominent voice of global South. It, therefore, is aptly suited to act as a vital bridge between West and Non West and a balancer to China centric Indo-Pacific. It therefore exemplifies the idea of much fairer and inclusive multi-polar system.
India opposes both Chinese hegemony and exclusive US-led containment with its vision of a “inclusive” Indo-Pacific, promoting values like ASEAN centrality, free and open oceans, and respect for sovereignty. With demonstrated participation in multilateral forums such as the G20, BRICS plus, IPEF, and the Quad, India has emerged as a credible voice of the Global South and assisted in bridging East-West and North-South divisions. The growth of India may lessen the likelihood of bipolar conflict and make it possible for cooperative security systems to coexist with competition.
World Geo-Strategic Insight
According to a number of analysts China views the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as a platform to project its global influence and build an alternative international order, while India sees it as a way to balance its multi-aligned foreign policy and enhance its presence in Eurasia. What’s your view? In general terms, what role does the SCO play in relations between India and China?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has emerged as one of the largest regional organizations in terms of geography and population, covering over 42% of the global population and nearly one-third of the world’s GDP. The SCO aims to promote stability in Eurasia, combat terrorism, and address security concerns. In a turbulent world of today, wherein global organisations like UN suffering credibility crisis, the role of regional organisations like SCO is increasing, is evident from the fact that many countries are waiting to join it.
In reference to your question, one of the main issues facing the SCO is China’s strategic interests and disproportionate influence. Although the SCO was created to be a multilateral security and economic forum, China has established itself as the region’s primary infrastructure and economic benefactor through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the development of economic and digital dependencies. Beijing has pushed for extending its greater control over decision-making processes, increasingly expanded its military presence in Central Asia through arms sales, border security cooperation, and joint exercises. Through initiatives such as proposals for an SCO development bank, expanded local‑currency trade and Chinese‑backed connectivity and technology projects, Beijing views the SCO as a vehicle to shape rules, norms, standards and infrastructure in a sphere where the US is largely absent. This has led to apprehensions amongst many that the SCO may be evolving into a China-dominated bloc rather than a truly collective security organization.
India’s admission as a full member in 2017, in my opinion, represented a strategic change and an opportunity for New Delhi to interact with China, Russia, and other members on regional security challenges, as well as Central Asian nations on connectivity (INSTC, Chahbahar) and energy issues. Through its multilateral alignment and engagements, India appears eager to work with the SCO to tackle terrorism, separatism, extremism, and cyber threats in a multilateral context while serving as a limited counterbalance to China’s increasing influence in Eurasia.
India envisions the SCO as a platform for regional security without being anti-West. India considers itself as part of Global South, which is ‘Non West’ but not ‘Anti West’ As a rising power, India appears to promote multilateralism and multi-alignment policies while balancing China’s influence and over-reliance on institutions controlled by any one nation. Being a member of the SCO gives India the chance to oppose any resolution that is detrimental to its national interests because the SCO is a consensus-based decision-making institution.
In context of SCO’s role in China-India relations, it has provided an opportunity for multilateral engagement, airing their narrative in multilateral setting and has facilitated side‑line conversations even during periods of severe bilateral tensions, including border standoffs, however, it can’t substitute direct negotiations on critical bilateral issues. The strategic visions of China and India about SCO being quite diverse (China viewing it as instrument for China centric Eurasia and India viewing it as forum for sovereignty‑sensitive multipolarity), it certainly remains a platform for managing controlled competition between both.
World Geo-Strategic Insight
With Russia’s growing dependence on China due to Western sanctions, how stable do you think the long-term “permanent” relationship between India and Russia is, especially given their different alignments in the Indo-Pacific?
Major General Dr S B Asthana
Russia and India have a long-standing, stable, well-established partnership that has been designated as a “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.” While most of India’s relationships with other major nations have witnessed ups and downs, the relationship between India and Russia has consistently stayed solid. At a period when Western nations supported despotism against India and failed to supply much-needed technology, Russia supplied the country with much-needed defensive equipment and technology.. Russia has been a major enabler in Indian pursuit towards self-reliance in defence manufacturing. In the recent past, while some western countries criticised strategic autonomy of India and tried to punish India with tariffs/penalties, Russia displayed maturity by not criticising Indian relations with western countries including Ukraine.
In reference to your question, it is true that Russia has become too reliant on the Chinese economy, India-Russian ties have not yet been impacted. Russia has not interfered in bilateral relationship between China and India and maintains not to do so. It hasn’t helped China against India or vice versa and created enough confidence and trust amongst Indians. It has not denied anything to India, which helps in its military capacity building, even when China and India faced standoffs. India is not basing its strategic calculations on irrational hopes and maintains reasonable assumptions that Russia may not be able to move against China in support of India because of dependencies. It creates a clear and reliable partnership between the two nations.
Russia continues to be a major arms and technology partner for India catering for approximately 36 percent of its defence needs. The long‑term military‑technical cooperation has been extended to 2031, covering systems such as S‑400, BrahMos, nuclear submarines and other equipment. India continues to buy Russian energy despite strong criticism by some western countries, notwithstanding the hypocrisy of they themselves buying commodities from Russia. India and Russia have set up trade target of $100 billion by 2030, and deepened cooperation in the Russian Far East, Arctic and connectivity corridors like INSTC and Chennai–Vladivostok. Joint production of defence equipment in India may see further boost because Moscow needs cheap labour and capital and India needs critical technology. These developments indicate that their relationship hasn’t been marred by China factor.
Russian position on Indo-Pacific is not the same as India, however Russia hasn’t put any pressure on India against joining Quad or partnering some western countries to mitigate its challenges in Indian Ocean, respecting its strategic autonomy. In maritime domain, the recent signing of RELOS agreement and jointly pursuing Chennai-Vladivostok corridor indicates mutual willingness for mutually beneficial projects, without questioning each other’s national interest. Russia India relationship is stable, mutually beneficial and is expected to remain so, although the China factor and different position on Indo-Pacific may limit the scope and magnitude of support to India in some circumstances; hence, India is appropriately diversifying its supply chain.
Major General (Dr) S B Asthana,SM,VSM,PhD (Veteran)
(The views expressed are personal views of the author, who retains the copy right. The author is a Globally acknowledged Strategic and Security Analyst, He can be reached at Facebook and LinkedIn as Shashi Asthana, @asthana_shashi on twitter, and personnel site https://asthanawrites.org/ email shashiasthana29@gmail.com LinkedIn Profile www.linkedin.com/in/shashi-asthana-4b3801a6. Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl50YRTBrOCVIxDtHfhvQDQ?view_as=subscriber
Watch the video analysis and commentary: 📺 Strategic Insights – Major General Dr. S.B. Asthana
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