Bilateral diplomacy is a never-ending tightrope walk for India and China

Satarupa Bhattacharjya

DIPLOMACY

Sino-Indian diplomacy has seen good and bad days over the past seven decades. The bilateral relationship had experienced an intense freeze for 15 years, following the 1962 war. It plunged to a new low after Indian and Chinese soldiers were killed in a clash in the Galwan river valley in June 2020. More skirmishes, though nonfatal, have taken place since then, amid a troops build-up, in their thousands, and partial pullback. Despite a series of military meetings, the standoff in certain parts of the border continues, with major implications for foreign policy.

Diplomacy is struggling. The lack of direct flights, suspended four years ago, is an indication. Indian observers of Sino-Indian relations said Beijing and New Delhi barely talked these days. Chinese analysts said back channels of communication should be opened.

In his message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 11 to congratulate him on his election victory, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said, “China is willing to work with India to push forward bilateral relations in the right direction.” India wants to talk about “border issues” with China, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the media after the new government was formed.

China views the decades-long dispute as a “leftover problem” of British colonialism and wants to go about business as usual in other areas such as trade, where it exports a lot more than it imports (India’s trade deficit was nearly $85 billion in 2023-24). India wants a return to status quo―as things were before mid-2020―along the Line of Actual Control. China’s new ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, arrived in April. The 18-month delay in his appointment was the longest for the post since relations were normalised after the war.

“The boundary question won’t be settled overnight. We need to talk, but China needs to undo its attempt to change facts on the ground,” said Ashok Kantha, who was India’s ambassador to China from 2014 to 2016. Ma Jiali, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at China Reform Forum, a Beijing think tank, said boundary was not the only issue, and that China and India could discuss economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and finding common ground on international issues, such as energy security, climate change and regional peace. “Disengagement or deployment depends on the ground situation, but also on political relations.”

India’s concerns include the very uneven economic relationship. Trade deficit aside, a reliance on Chinese imports and the limited market access for Indian companies in China are other concerns. Post-pandemic, the global supply chain issues have shown that “you can’t be too dependent on one country”, said Kantha. Added to that are current concerns about the Chinese economy and geopolitics.

India has been working on the securitisation of its economic interests. The government changed India’s foreign direct investment policy in April 2020. Now, prior approval for foreign investments from countries sharing a land border with India is mandatory. While India shares land borders with several countries, the measure impacts China the most. Chinese investment in India has declined in recent years alongside the government crackdown on businesses. Chinese smartphone companies were sponsoring cricket in India not so long ago.

Andy Mok, senior research fellow at the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation, said trade was a bright spot, despite the challenges. “Tackling market access barriers and ensuring fair regulations can cultivate a better trade relationship.”

A ‘Leading Small Group’ is a body of the Communist Party of China that directs foreign policy. Such groups tasked with policy recommendations have become prominent during President Xi Jinping’s tenure. The ministry of foreign affairs follows the guidelines in managing policy. In India, the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs, with MPs from different political parties, has a substantial say in foreign policy, while the ministry of external affairs runs the show in coordination with the prime minister’s office.

“Unlike India, the Chinese system is opaque in terms of the implementation of foreign policy,” said Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of China studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Revelations seldom come even years later if Chinese leaders publish their memoirs. They rarely share personal anecdotes from their time on the job or opinion on policy.

China’s foreign policy at the moment is defined by expansive territorial claims that it is pushing hard to secure, said Ian Chong, who teaches Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore. China and India are major geopolitical actors. “To the extent that their interests diverge, there will be friction, as indeed we have seen over disputed parts of their border,” said Chong.

The foreign policy objectives for both, as with many other countries, are dealing with the effects of de-globalisation, tensions in US-China relations and the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. “India and China are trying to keep their moorings intact, while putting their national interests in the forefront,” said Alka Acharya, professor of East Asian studies at JNU. China has criticised the Quad, or the quadrilateral security grouping of the US, Japan, Australia and India, as a bloc aimed to contain its rise. For India, China’s power assertions in South Asia and its closeness with Pakistan have been hard to ignore.

Beijing and New Delhi want the relationship to stabilise, but they must talk and negotiate, said Qian Feng, director of research at the National Strategy Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing. “Chinese decision-makers definitely see India as a power.” The growth of the Indian economy is not the only reason. Singapore, for instance, has been economically strong for long, but it is a city state and enjoys good relations with China, said Qian. India is a country of 1.4 billion people and its foreign policy is perceived to be autonomous.

Kantha said Quad was not an Asian version of NATO. Besides, India is a major player in groupings with China, such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. “China is not supportive of India’s rise,” he said. A permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has been scuttling India’s bid for a seat at the table. The other four―the US, France, Britain and Russia―have offered India their support.

Both a common and a complex factor in India-China relations is Russia. China and Russia share what they call a “limitless partnership”, more pronounced since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and cemented further following western sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine in 2022. “This is the new international model,” Qian said of Sino-Russian relations.

India-Russia relations go back in history. India has diversified its defence imports over the years, yet trade with Russia has continued in other sectors. China and India have emerged as the biggest importers of Russian oil. India, which has a smaller trade deficit with Russia, is wary of at least one aspect of the China-Russia relationship. “India is against the transfer of strategic technology from Russia to China. It could be passed on to Pakistan,” Kondapalli said. These include the S-400 air defence system, which is among the world’s most advanced technologies.

Russia supplies weapons to India, China and some other countries. China is Pakistan’s main supplier. At its peak in 2005, China accounted for 60 per cent of all Russian deliveries of major weapons. But that share has fallen to 10 per cent since 2010. After difficult negotiations, Russia and China moved to a new level of arms trade in 2015, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that tracks defence export and import around the world. “We have concerns about Russia-China relations and the sale of arms to Pakistan. China is aware of our concerns,” Kantha said.

Sino-Russian relations have come a long way since the Sino-Soviet split, but are not without questions. China has given an old Chinese name to the Russian far eastern city of Vladivostok, and other Chinese names to seven Russian locations near its border, in its official documents. “President Vladimir Putin doesn’t protest because he needs Xi’s blessings,” Kondapalli said. Chinese presence has also increased in the vast resource-rich Russian region of Siberia.

In the early 1990s, China and Russia began to demilitarise their shared border and resolved the disputes within the next decade. “Emulating the China-Russia model of overcoming historical tensions could be similarly advantageous for India,” said Mok. “But it requires pragmatism.”