Background
In 1947, Nehru became India’s first Prime Minister.
On 27 April 2023, we published a paper, “INDIA, OH INDIA – THE ELUSIVE BRIDE” where we wrote:
“Nehru promoted ‘non-alignment’. India preserves its strategic autonomy and seeks to be beholden to no other countries. Modi has managed to elevate India’s global stature, and each of the other major powers – the US, Russia, and China – court India. While the US targets China as a strategic rival, it speaks effusively of India’s commitment to ‘shared values’, ignoring the fact that India, the world’s ‘largest democracy’ is no ‘liberal democracy’. B.R Ambedkar who drafted the new Indian constitution warned that ‘democracy in India was only top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic’.”
Relations with USA
India is a member of BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Quad. BRICS and the SCO aim to serve as a bridge between the Global South and the developed world.
Washington has been seeking to expand ties with New Delhi and has even backed off from its misgivings about India’s energy imports from Russia although New Delhi has not condemned Russia’s war with Ukraine[i].
Successive US Presidents have reached out to India hoping that New Delhi would achieve enough power to counterbalance Beijing. However, India is nonaligned and refers to its policy as one of “strategic autonomy”. Even if India does acquire sufficient power to counterbalance China, it might then see itself as a counterbalance to the United States and could potentially produce an even more unstable global dynamic[ii].
There is an unbridgeable gap between India’s grand ambitions for itself and Washington’s wish for India to be a bulwark against China. India wants to be a great power in its own right, not a mere junior partner living in the shadows of Uncle Sam. India has not gained any significant political advantage from working with the US. The economic benefits which India had expected from aligning with the US have not materialized and ultimately, Modi’s hope of becoming a partner of the US has proved to have been misguided. US investment in India remains minimal and major American companies like Ford and General Motors have exited the Indian market.
Following escalation of the Ukraine crisis in February 2022, the US implemented economic sanctions against Russian oil. However, Russia successfully redirected its oil exports to China and India with India buying 10 times more oil in 2023 than in the previous year. Since 2022, India had emerged as Russia’s second largest buyer of oil but has since overtaken China as the number one buyer.
The India/China Relationship
The India/China relationship had been impacted by decades of tensions due to their poorly defined and long disputed 3,440 km border. This has led to a number of clashes, most recently the fatal clash in the Galwan Valley in 2020 leading to loss of life on both sides.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met informally in April 2018. They again met in October 2019, but that meeting was a failure due to Modi’s wish at the time to align more closely with the US. However, India’s trade dependence on China has since increased significantly and this has led the Indian government to recognise that maintaining a relationship with China is essential for India’s economic development. By Modi’s third term, he was looking to reverse course by shifting towards China[iii].
Resolving the India/China Border Issues
Modi and Xi again met in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. After that, the two sides announced that they had made progress in resolving their military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and had reached agreement on plans to resolve their disputed Himalayan border issues. Their representatives would meet to explore a fair and mutually acceptable solution, with Modi saying that “Maintaining peace and stability on the border should remain our priority”[iv]. If India and China can successfully implement steps towards de-escalation and demilitarization this might contribute to the early restoration of their diplomatic and bilateral political relations.
In December 2024, China approved a “super dam” project in the Tibet autonomous region on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, the upper section of the Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest transnational rivers which is vital to the livelihoods of millions across China, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The river originates in the Tibet Plateau in south-west China, flows through southern Tibet, crossing the Himalayas into India where it is called Brahmaputra, before entering Bangladesh. The river is central to the socio-economic development of both India and China. The absence of a formal water sharing agreement between China and India exacerbates the challenges of shared river governance and this needs to be resolved by them.
How Quickly Things Change
After Modi won a third term as India’s Prime Minister in June 2024, Foreign Affairs magazine described tensions at the disputed Chinese-Indian border as “one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints” adding that the “deepening border crisis reflects the growing strategic rivalry between India and China”[v]. The following month Foreign Policy magazine concluded that “A peaceful and normal relationship between the world’s two most populous countries looks unlikely any time soon".
That was the situation even though China had surpassed the US as India’s biggest trading partner in 2023, and India was in no position to de-risk its economic dependence on China. Modi proclaimed that India needed “To urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us". Significant progress has since been and continues to be made in resolving the border issues.
Amid a more volatile global geopolitical climate fuelled by the return of Donald Trump, both the Indian External Affairs Minister and the Foreign Secretary visited Washington in late 2024. In the same month, India’s Defence Minister was in Moscow where he described the India-Russia friendship as “Higher than the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest ocean”. Although India claims that it is not a strategic enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine, India is the second largest supplier, after China of restricted critical technologies to Russia[vi].
US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan met his Indian counterpart as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top officials in New Delhi on 6 January 2025, highlighting some shakiness and possible concerns about momentum in the relationship as Donald Trump prepares to take office.
Deteriorating Relationship with the United States
India has not supported US sanctions against Russia and instead has ramped up its purchases of Russian oil, overtaking China as Moscow’s largest buyer. US Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell said that “India will never be a formal ally or partner in the United States” although he acknowledged that India was “probably the most important relationship for the United States to get right."
However, India has refused to take sides between Russia and the West. Many Indians are sympathetic to Russia’s territorial claims believing that Russia had to act, given NATO’s encroachment on its doorstep. According to surveys, 57% of Indians have a favourable view of Russia.
India has resisted Western pressure to distance itself from Moscow, stressing its intention to maintain its strategic autonomy. Indian officials, including Modi frequently describe Russia as “India’s most trusted and dependable friend".
India has an opportunity to work with like-minded nations, particularly in Southeast Asia, to create a coalition of the “unwilling” – unwilling to compromise on their sovereignty, unwilling to enter entangling alliances, and unwilling to have their journey towards development derailed by a new global conflict.
As Kishore Mahbubani wrote in July 2024, “There is no question that by 2050, we will live in a tripolar world. The three great powers will be China, India and the USA”[vii].
The Value of the China-India Relationship
China’s relations with the US have continued to slide while it is in China’s interest to return India and China to the path of normalization which both need if they are to reap the full benefit of their relationship[viii].
For BRICS to succeed, India and China need to cooperate and Beijing wants India to play a more active role in both BRICS and the SCO. Both nations see themselves as leaders of the Global South and theirs can be a formidable alliance, underscoring the importance of collaboration between them[ix].
One thing that has not and will not change is India’s “Strategic Autonomy”.
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM – HEAR THE OTHER SIDE
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[i] Foreign Policy, December 2024
[ii] Foreign Affairs, India will Carve its Own Path, December 2024
[iii] Asia Times, Why Modi's shifting India away from US toward China, October 2024
[iv] BBC News, What led to Modi and Xi meeting and Thawing Ties, October 2024
[v] Foreign Affairs, India's Perilous Border Standoff with China, June 2024
[vi] Lowy Institute 9 January 2025
[vii] Kishore Mahbubani, Singaporean diplomat and former President of UN Security Council 9 July 2024
[viii] Kanti Bajpai, Why have China and India come together, November 2024
[ix] South China Morning Post – China/India finds common ground for Strategic Recalibration, Nov 2024
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