Why Bharat Matters Chapter 8: The Nehru–Patel cleavage and its enduring imprint

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The Nehru–Patel cleavage and its enduring imprint

The debate that frames India’s policy toward China has been, from the outset, a contest between two political-philosophical postures: a Nehruvian internationalism that trusted in ideological affinity, moral persuasion and pan‑Asian solidarity; and a Patel‑like realpolitik that read power relations, geography and the historical behaviour of large neighbours as primary determinants of security. This cleavage was not merely rhetorical; it produced divergent diagnoses of Chinese intentions, competing prescriptions for boundary management and differing priorities in resource allocation. In 1950 these positions were already starkly formed.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel spoke in hard-nosed terms about the strategic realities confronting a newly independent India. He warned of the need to prepare to defend multiple fronts and was sceptical of neighbouring states’ professions of goodwill when material interests and capacities suggested otherwise. He viewed China’s leadership and policy proclivities with caution and counselled prudence.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s outlook, by contrast, gave greater weight to ideological proximity and the possibilities of a progressive Asian order. His famous note of 18 November 1950—asserting that it was “inconceivable that China would ‘undertake a wild adventure across the Himalayas’”—captured more than a specific prediction; it reflected a broader disposition to read Chinese statements of friendship at face value, to discount worst-case scenarios as “unreasoning fears,” and to prioritise normative solidarity over immediate strategic scepticism. Over time both leaders tempered aspects of their positions as practicalities demanded negotiation and accommodation, yet their core instincts—Nehru’s internationalist optimism and Patel’s caution—remained embedded in the policy discourse and in institutional habit.

This early divergence mattered because it set the terms of debate that would surface repeatedly: boundary management and military preparedness; the balance between public rhetoric and covert readiness; the allocation of scarce resources between development and defence; and the extent to which India should align with or distance itself from great‑power blocs. The tone of the 1950s was candid, sometimes undiplomatic, and those debates continued to inform decision-making across successive administrations.

From Panchsheel to 1962: misreadings and their costs

The “Panchsheel” period—culminating in the 1954 Panchsheel declaration—came to symbolize, for many critics, a complacent phase in Indian diplomacy. Panchsheel’s five principles (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non‑aggression, mutual non‑interference, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence) were intended as an ethical framework for interstate relations in Asia. In practice, they also became a defining image of a policy that prioritised normative commitments and public declarations of amity over a rigorous assessment of capability, intent and interest.

Nehru’s position on the United Nations Security Council in 1955 provides a revealing example of the logic of prioritising principles over immediate power gain. Rather than pressing India’s own candidacy or leveraging the question of permanent membership to balance against China or other major powers, Nehru stated that India “was not in a hurry” and suggested that China should take its “rightful place” first. The policy that might be labelled “China First”—born of idealism about global order and a reluctance to be seen as opportunistic—proved not to be reciprocated by Beijing and exposed a miscalculation in the tradeoff between moral claims and strategic positioning.

The lessons of November 1962 were stark and unforgiving. The swift Chinese offensive—moving through mountain passes and contesting positions such as Sela and Bomdila—laid bare the consequences of inadequate frontier infrastructure, insufficient military preparedness and an overreliance on moral suasion. The behaviour of Indian political leadership during the crisis also revealed lingering orientations: in conversations with the United States, the prime minister reportedly qualified requests for assistance by suggesting that, “because of its wider implications in the global context, India did not seek more comprehensive assistance.” That hesitance to draw the United States or other Western powers closer—even at a time of immediate territorial threat—was, to critics, symptomatic of a persistent reluctance to privilege short‑term security needs over a principled posture of non‑alignment.

The 1962 war therefore functions as a critical juncture in India’s strategic memory—an empirical refutation of the assumption that principled declarations or shared ideological language alone would prevent coercive behaviour by a militarily capable neighbour.

The slow accumulation of strategic costs (1950s–2014)

Following 1962, the oscillation between Nehruvian confidence and Patelite caution continued to mark Indian policy. Over decades the divergence manifested not only in diplomatic statements but in concrete policy domains: boundary management, the deployment and quality of border infrastructure, public education about strategic threats, trade policy, connectivity initiatives, and technology acquisition. Several interlocking tendencies contributed to a slow build‑up of strategic vulnerability.

First, public and elite opinion hardened and softened at different times. The earlier impulse toward developing-world solidarity and a pan‑Asian posture weakened as repeated episodes of reciprocal experience with China accumulated. Second, long periods of underinvestment in border infrastructure, and a failure to accelerate structural transformation in manufacturing and technology, meant that India entered the second decade of the twenty‑first century with notable capacity gaps vis‑à‑vis a rapidly modernising China. Third, economic and developmental engagement with China—the liberal openings and integration into global value chains—had strategic benefits but also created dependencies that Beijing could exploit politically.

The period up to 2014 saw policy tendencies that underestimated the challenge posed by China. Admiration for aspects of China’s model and its economic dynamism sometimes translated into strategic complacency: insufficient urgency on self‑reliance in critical technologies, an underappreciation of the implications of trade and investment imbalances, and a lack of rigorous scrutiny of large-scale external connectivity projects. Domestic politics—populist or policy‑driven—occasionally undermined long‑term institutional investment in skills, supply chains and defence preparedness. Critics point to the neglect of frontier roads and logistics, the slow modernisation of the Indian military’s mountain warfare capacities, and episodic vacillation in diplomatic posture as evidence that India had, to a dangerous extent, allowed political priors and rhetorical postures to blunt practical preparedness.

These tendencies produced a constituency sometimes labelled “Chindians”: policymakers and commentators who simultaneously admire China’s developmental achievements and global trajectory while under‑rating its strategic assertiveness. The interplay of domestic rhetoric—at times ultra‑nationalist—and international deference or credulousness created a double messaging that muddied strategic clarity.

The watershed year in this arc is often identified as 2014. Political change in New Delhi combined with evolving public attitudes and international developments to end an extended period of complacency toward some of China’s strategic initiatives—what policymakers began to identify as the end of indulgence towards Beijing’s “String of Pearls” outreach and a recognition that transactional economics could not replace hard power and technological autonomy.

Realism resurges: policy levers, instruments and orientation since 2014

The realist turn in Indian policy after 2014 is neither monolithic nor entirely coherent, but it is marked by discernible priorities and policy instruments. Realists within the Indian strategic community emphasise three interdependent imperatives: capability‑building, clear definition and defence of national interests, and continuous sceptical assessment of competitors’ strategies.

Concrete manifestations include:

  • Rapid upgrades of boundary infrastructure: accelerated road, bridge and logistic development in frontier areas, better surveillance networks and improved lines of supply and communication to forward formations.
  • A technology‑centric posture: advocacy for an indigenous 5G stack and a prioritisation of critical and emerging technologies (semiconductors, secure telecommunications, AI, cyber) as central to national security and economic resilience.
  • Harder diplomatic language on issues of debt‑based connectivity and opaque financing: publicly calling out unsustainable lending practices, lack of transparency in Belt and Road Initiative projects, and the strategic risks of connectivity designed without local agency or reciprocity.
  • Security‑first framing of transnational issues: an emphasis on terrorism, maritime claims, and strategic supply‑chain security as primary lenses through which economic and diplomatic engagements must be evaluated.

Realists also adopt a posture of continuous monitoring and external scepticism: they argue for tracking how states respond to miscalculations, for not treating linear economic growth as inevitably translating into benign behaviour, and for resisting transactional compromises that undercut long‑term credibility. In practice this posture has produced policy choices that are more transactional, selective in engagement, and oriented toward hedging and capability accumulation rather than unconditional rapprochement.

Yet the realist resurgence is constrained by structural realities: economic interdependence, global institutional architecture, and domestic political dynamics. The challenge for Indian realists is to translate emphasis on capability and credibility into durable institutional practices—procurement cycles, industrial policy, training regimes, diplomatic doctrine—that outlast political cycles and episodic crises.

Epics as instructive metaphors: strategic lessons from the Ramayana and Ravana

Indian strategic reflection has long drawn upon civilisational memory to illuminate modern dilemmas. Three episodes from the Ramayana—Dasaratha’s boons to Kaikeyi, Ravana’s boon from Brahma, and the Rama–Bharata–Jabali debate—offer compact metaphors for contemporary international relations and for the errors of misplaced trust, omitted contingencies and the corrosion of credibility.

  • Dasaratha, Kaikeyi and the boons. After Dasaratha’s battlefield successes he grants two boons to Kaikeyi. When those boons are invoked at a later moment, they are used to exile Rama and to instal Bharata—outcomes that Dasaratha did not foresee and that render prior generosity a source of strategic vulnerability. The moral for statecraft is that the sharing of guarantees, privileges or tolerances—especially when done without strict conditions or institutionalising safeguards—can be exploited. In a foreign policy context this warns against unconstrained gestures of trust or concessions that create latent rights or expectations which others can weaponise later.

  • Ravana’s boon and overlooked threats. Ravana’s invulnerability—bestowed by Brahma against divine and supernatural adversaries but not against humans—expresses the danger of excluding categories of threat from one’s calculus out of arrogance or myopia. Strategic actors that dismiss a plausible class of adversary or tactic do so at their peril. The contemporary analogue is the failure to anticipate unconventional forms of pressure—economic coercion, technological denial, debt leverage—that do not fit traditional definitions of military threat but can be decisive.

  • Rama, Bharata and the value of credibility. In the episode when Bharata, urged by sages including Jabali, requests Rama to renounce his exile, Rama’s insistence on honouring the vow of Dasaratha underscores the systemic value of credible commitments. States that abrogate or reinterpret their obligations for immediate gain pay a reputational price that can limit future leverage and engender counter‑alignments. The lesson is not moralistic alone: it is instrumental—in international politics, continuity of policy and the keeping of promises underwrite predictable reciprocity and long‑term coalitions.

These parables are not ornamental. They distil a strategic ethic that emphasises foresight, the management of latent obligations, and the centrality of reputation—all elements consonant with a realist appreciation of international politics.

Unintended consequences and the long shadow of strategic generosity

History repeatedly shows that strategic generosity, when insufficiently conditioned by calculus about ends and means, can produce unintended consequences. The Cold War offers a diplomatic cautionary tale: policies that sought to use Islamist militancy as a lever against the Soviet Union in the 1980s boomeranged in later decades, producing instability and transnational threats that reverberated beyond original intentions. Similarly, the economic and diplomatic assistance extended to China during its period of opening—trade liberalisation, technology transfer and integration into global markets—produced profound developmental benefits for both partners in the short run but also underwrote China’s later capacity to translate economic power into asymmetric political and military influence. Strategic generosity thus can seed the capabilities of future competitors.

India’s enthusiastic advocacy of Chinese interests in the 1950s—whether in international organisations or regional fora—was not reciprocated in mutually beneficial ways when the balance of power shifted. Diplomatic gratitude has, in practice, a short shelf‑life unless underwritten by congruent material interests. The lesson is clear: moral or ideological proximity does not substitute for a sober calculation of capability trajectories and the institutions that shape them.

The analytic posture of realism: skepticism, monitoring and the primacy of capability

To operationalise the lessons of history requires an analytic posture that privileges continuous, sceptical assessment over assumption. Realism demands that policymakers:

  • Define national interests with precision, enunciating clearly what is non‑negotiable and what is amenable to trade-offs.
  • Invest decisively in the capabilities that secure those interests—military preparedness, resilient supply chains, technological sovereignty and infrastructural redundancy.
  • Monitor global responses to strategic moves and miscalculations, recognising that major powers are fallible and that history is non‑linear.
  • Resist short‑term bargains that undermine long‑term credibility, understanding that reputation is itself a strategic asset.

This posture is not an argument for constant antagonism but for sober appraisal: to weigh institutional solidarity against raw capacity; to recognise that economic interdependence can be weaponised; and to structure engagement with rivals in ways that protect core interests while exploiting opportunities for cooperation where mutual benefit is both real and resilient.

The India–China relationship remains, in many respects, an “unnatural” one: dense in economic ties and people‑to‑people links, yet contested in strategic aims and territorial claims. The border events of 2020 have only reinforced that the future is neither foreordained nor monocausal. The central prescription remains durable: define and defend national interests; build and sustain capabilities; cultivate strategic sobriety; and treat historical lessons—not least those encoded in our epics—not as pieties but as heuristics for clearer judgement.

The Galwan Shock and Its Wider Strategic Consequences

The violent encounter in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 — the first deadly clash on the India–China border in forty-five years — ruptured more than a localized peace. It demolished a set of working assumptions that had underpinned bilateral management of the frontier for nearly four decades. The immediate human cost and the symbolic weight of fatalities on an otherwise largely peaceful frontier reverberated through India’s strategic community, public opinion and policymaking circles. More importantly, the Galwan episode exposed a pattern of Chinese behaviour in the run-up to the clash that appeared to contravene established bilateral understandings. That disregard for prior commitments carries strategic implications well beyond the violence itself: it generates cascading questions about Beijing’s posture, intent and the durability of the arrangements which had constrained competition along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The practical consequence is a multidimensional challenge for Indian foreign policy. Galwan was not merely an operational failure or border skirmish; it was a crisis of prediction and of management. If the instruments and norms that had kept the peace could be breached or ignored, then India had to re-evaluate how it understood Chinese strategy, how it structured deterrence and defence along the frontier, and how it balanced the competing demands of economic engagement and strategic caution.

Historical Trajectory: From Early Engagement to Protracted Rivalry

The India–China relationship has always been exceptionally complex — perhaps the single most complex strategic problem India faces as it seeks a larger role in the global order. Complexity derives from multiple, interacting factors: geographic contiguity; overlapping and competing politico-economic models; a persistent and unresolved boundary dispute; and entangled peripheries that cause local dynamics to have outsized bilateral effects.

The modern arc of the relationship contains several paradoxes and turning points. India was among the earliest states to recognise the People’s Republic of China in 1950, a gesture that reflected New Delhi’s postcolonial foreign policy instincts. Yet the quality of relations was decisively shaped by the 1962 border war; that conflict produced a generation of strategic mistrust that dominated bilateral interactions for decades. Between 1962 and the mid-1970s the relationship was frozen; ambassadors were not exchanged until 1976 and a full restoration of high-level political engagement took still longer — the first prime ministerial visit since 1954 occurred only in 1988 (Rajiv Gandhi). The result was a painstaking and protracted process of rebuilding trust and normalcy.

From the late 1980s onward, there was a conscious effort to normalise ties and expand channels of cooperation. Trade grew rapidly and China became one of India’s largest trading partners; Chinese capital, technology and firms made increasingly visible inroads into Indian markets; and cross-border flows of students and tourists increased. This expansion in engagement opened new possibilities for both countries within the international order. The parallel but differential rise of India and China formed a core axis of global rebalancing. For a period, the two were seen as potential drivers of an “Asian century” and even entertained discussions as far-reaching as a bilateral free trade agreement (an FTA) — possibilities that were quietly set aside after about 2013 as strategic frictions reasserted themselves.

Yet cooperation at the multilateral level — in the UNFCCC, some WTO contexts, BRICS and groupings such as RIC — coexisted uneasily with contestation on security and sovereignty issues. The bilateral record after the 1980s therefore becomes one of expanding economic interdependence and institutional engagement, circumscribed by enduring and occasionally intensifying strategic contestation.

Border Management: Agreements, Mechanisms and Their Limits

Central to post-1980s bilateral management of the frontier was a set of detailed, pragmatic understandings designed to preserve peace and tranquillity along the LAC while substantive boundary negotiations remained unresolved. These understandings were legally and politically modest but operationally precise.

  • The 1993 Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the LAC established core principles: neither side would cross the LAC; military deployments along the LAC should be kept at levels compatible with good relations; and prior notification would be given for military exercises proximate to the LAC.
  • The 1996 Agreement elaborated those commitments. It mandated limiting or reducing the number of army, border defence and paramilitary forces in the LAC’s vicinity, and formalised data exchanges to that effect. The 1996 text placed explicit constraints on large-scale manoeuvres: exercises involving more than a division (approximately 15,000 troops) were to be avoided in close proximity to the LAC. When large exercises were conducted, they should not have a main force direction towards the border. It also required prior notification for exercises involving more than a brigade (about 5,000 troops), including dates for completion and de-induction.
  • The 1993 provision to jointly check LAC segments with differing perceptions was upgraded over time into an objective of clarifying and confirming the LAC. Subsequent detailed understandings — particularly those negotiated in 2005 and 2013 — created protocols for handling friction and for managing face-offs, including hotlines, commander-level meetings and rules of engagement to de-escalate tactical situations.

Nevertheless, these mechanisms had limits. Meaningful progress toward a shared, mutually accepted alignment of the LAC did not materialise. Dialogue mechanisms accelerated — the appointment of Special Representatives (SRs) in 2003 intensified engagement, and a specific mechanism to address border issues was instituted in 2012 — but diplomatic tracks often lagged behind material changes on the ground. The gap between paper commitments and operational realities became a recurring problem: detailed procedural arrangements existed, but they required an underlying political will and reciprocal restraint that were not always forthcoming.

Material Asymmetries: Infrastructure, Strategic Depth and the Indian Ocean

A critical and insufficiently appreciated dimension of India’s strategic position vis-à-vis China has been the asymmetry in infrastructure and logistic depth in areas adjacently relevant to the border and the broader strategic theatre.

Over the past few decades China built up border infrastructure — roads, rail, logistics nodes and mobility-enhancing works — that materially changed the calculus along the frontier. In contrast, until the early 2010s a prevailing Indian bureaucracy and parts of the strategic community operated under the belief that border areas were best left undeveloped or that their development would be politically or economically imprudent. That misjudgement, in hindsight, imposed significant costs. By the time the disparity became a subject of debate, strategic asymmetries were already deep: faster Chinese mobilization capability, superior depth-area logistics and reinforced military infrastructure changed the operational balance.

India’s response since 2014 was decisive in intent and scale: budgetary allocations for border infrastructure were raised to roughly four times previous levels; road construction rates doubled and tunnelling activity tripled. Yet even these accelerated efforts could not instantly close a long-standing differential. The persistent infrastructure gap proved consequential in 2020, forcing Indian forces to rely on operational ingenuity to neutralise some of China’s material advantages.

Beyond the land frontier, China’s expanding reach — especially across the Indian Ocean through commercial, diplomatic and security instruments — amplified India’s strategic vulnerability. Fifteen years ago, the growth of Chinese presence in India’s maritime neighbourhood was insufficiently appreciated in Indian strategic assessments. Today, the Indian Ocean constitutes a vibrant theatre of strategic competition, not simply a maritime economic space, and that extended reach magnifies the importance of India’s own national-power investments and external partnerships.

Economic Interdependence, Select Cooperation and Strategic Rivalry

India–China ties have been defined by a paradoxical combination of deepening economic interdependence and intensifying strategic rivalry.

  • Trade expansion was dramatic: China became one of India’s largest trading partners. This integration encompassed goods, investment, infrastructure projects and technology. Chinese firms won significant contracts in sectors such as power and telecommunications. Meanwhile, flows of Indian students and tourists to China expanded the human dimension of ties.
  • Cooperation persisted on specific global issues. India and China often found common cause on development-related matters — climate policy (UNFCCC) and certain WTO agendas — and they worked together in plurilateral forums such as BRICS and earlier RIC formats.
  • Yet the cooperation did not obviate contestation. Trade was criticised in India for being one-sided, with an enduring trade deficit and complaints of market access asymmetries. Promises by Beijing of reciprocal opening for Indian goods and services frequently appeared unreliable in practical delivery. Over time, systemic policymakers in India began applying strategic filters to economic engagement and pushed back against proposals that neglected security considerations. That shift contributed to the abandonment of earlier momentum toward an FTA.

New fault-lines emerged as both countries grew more confident and assertive. The 2013 announcement of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — subsequently folded into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — provoked Indian concern because it incorporated territory India claims as its own, thus appearing to violate Indian sovereignty. China’s actions on issues directly affecting Indian security — notably its blocking of UN listings for Pakistan-based terrorists who target India — further amplified mistrust. Other diplomatic irritants included China’s opposition to India’s bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and Beijing’s approach to proposals for reforming global institutions, where it often diverged from Indian positions.

Territorial signalling in administrative practices also produced friction: the issuance of “stapled visas” to residents of Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, passport water-marking that included Indian provinces, and reluctance by China to sustain exchanges with India’s northern military command each amounted to acts that asserted Chinese positions on territorial issues and eroded mutual confidence. Over time, such actions hardened domestic political views in India and affected the previously comfortable terrain of cooperation.

Domestic Debates, Policy Shifts and the Limits of Engagement

Within India a vibrant domestic debate emerged around how to manage relations with China. For many years a powerful lobby advocated deepening economic ties with Beijing and argued that China should receive an exemption from stringent security-scrutiny — a stance informed, in part, by Nehruvian ideas of Third World solidarity and also by a perception that closer ties with China could be compensated by an improving India–US relationship. Proponents of trade expansion often projected public improvement in boundary talks well beyond the actual diplomatic gains. That optimism, and the influence of economic constituencies, resulted in policy choices that sometimes treated security and economic engagement as separable.

By the mid-2010s a shift occurred among systemic policymakers who increasingly highlighted strategic vulnerabilities: the trade deficit, boundary frictions and national-security risks began to temper the enthusiasm for unconstrained economic engagement. This reassessment fed into tangible policy changes, including a more cautious approach to bilateral investment and technology flows, and it contributed to India stepping back from deeper trade-convergence initiatives such as an FTA.

The Galwan events profoundly altered public and political sentiment. The clash signalled disregard for commitments on troop levels, prior notification and the preservation of the status quo — norms that had sustained peace. The shock produced a consolidated domestic consensus in India demanding firmer action and a reorientation of policy away from the uncritical engagement that had characterised previous decades.

The Search for a Modus Vivendi: Strategy and Instruments

The central diplomatic question for New Delhi is how to establish the most advantageous and durable modus vivendi with Beijing. This imperative is urgent for several interlinked reasons.

First, China’s rapid growth affects India in especially acute ways because of proximity and the overlap of their peripheries. Economic, political and security vectors intersect in ways they do not where China’s rise is geographically distant. Second, Beijing has not accorded India the same recognition and accommodation that China has afforded to other rising states or that India expected as commensurate with its own growth. Third, the interaction between bilateral contestation and multilateral structures means that India must reconcile its bilateral posture with broader global calculations.

From India’s perspective, responses must be multifaceted:

  • Build national strength. Strengthening defence capabilities, economic resilience and technological autonomy are prerequisites for credible deterrence and strategic independence.
  • Upgrade infrastructure. Addressing the long-standing gap in border infrastructure — roads, tunnels, logistics and forward sustainment — is essential to reduce operational asymmetries.
  • Reconfigure strategy and diplomacy. There is a compelling argument, reflected increasingly in policy debates, for a conceptual transformation in India’s diplomatic approach: an unapologetic re-embrace of a realist tradition that links national power, alliance choices, and transactional diplomacy to preserve autonomy while exploiting new global opportunities.

Operationally, India has moved to raise budgets, accelerate constructions and enhance connectivity in border areas since 2014. Politically, New Delhi faces choices about the mix of deterrence, dialogues and external balancing — how much to rely on strengthening ties with other powers, how to institutionalise crisis-management arrangements with China, and how to shape regional architectures in ways that downplay zero-sum outcomes.

A critical yet unresolved point is that India has not received a credible, persuasive explanation from Beijing for the 2020 change in behaviour — for the massing of forces or for the apparent willingness to transgress established norms. On the ground, Indian forces responded appropriately, held positions and displayed tactical resolve; the strategic question, however, is what the Chinese posture signals about future dynamics and whether such episodes will become recurrent.

The Wider Strategic Consequences: Asia and the Global Order

The cumulative effect of India–China developments has implications that transcend bilateral interaction and affect the established world order. The parallel rise of two large civilisations with global ambitions opens spaces for change: neither India nor China can ignore the other; both can sustain a long strategic race; and both must account for the rest of the world in their bilateral calculations. Outcomes of this relationship will shape the political economy and security architecture of Asia and, potentially, the global order.

There are two overarching dynamics to note. First, the coexistence of competition and cooperation — economic interdependence alongside strategic rivalry — creates a complex, ambiguous operating environment in which misperception and escalation risks grow if channels of communication break down. Second, the bilateral relationship is not just bilateral; it intertwines with other actors’ policies (the United States, European states, regional powers) and multilateral institutions. How India navigates its China problem — through power-building, diplomatic realism, and selective engagement — will have consequences for regional stability and for the distribution of influence in Asia.

Finally, the modern history of bilateral ties teaches an important lesson: early engagement without reciprocal political clarity can produce costly disillusions, while a sustained absence of dialogue can allow misalignments to calcify into crises. The task for India is to fashion a pragmatic, calibrated strategy that recognises the centrality of China to its security and prosperity, yet treats that reality with the hard-headed strategic tools and institutional investments a rising power requires.

The Current State of India–China Relations and the Three Mutuals

The present condition of India–China ties is grave and unpredictable. Since 2020 confidence and trust have been severely eroded, producing a bilateral environment in which scholars and policymakers are rightly uncertain about trajectory and outcomes. Given the cumulative effect of changing military postures, infrastructural investments along the frontier, and strategic signalling on maritime and regional fronts, no definitive prognosis about the future of the relationship can yet be offered. What, however, can and should guide policy is a normative-operational foundation built on mutuality — conceived not as a hopeful slogan but as a practical rule-set consisting of three interlocking pillars: mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests.

  • Mutual respect: acknowledgement of each other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and core concerns, applied in deeds as well as language.
  • Mutual sensitivity: an obligation to refrain from actions that needlessly exacerbate the other’s insecurity, and to take into account the political and operational reverberations of one’s moves.
  • Mutual interests: identification of areas where cooperative gains are genuinely shared (trade facilitation, environmental management, regional pandemic responses), with an honest mapping of where interests diverge.

These three mutuals collectively determine the direction of the relationship: absent them, tactical interactions — even if periodically cooperative — will remain brittle and liable to abrupt deterioration. In practical terms, therefore, stabilisation must be the immediate priority; all subsequent policy choices must be calibrated so that they do not undermine the restoration and preservation of the three mutuals.

Border Dynamics, Stabilisation and Operational Realities

A central and enduring engine of instability is the border question. The post-2020 phase made manifest what many strategists had warned: peace in the border areas is the sine qua non for any resumption of multifaceted normalcy between the two states. Several operational realities follow from this fact.

  • Existing confidence-building instruments must be honoured in letter and spirit. The 1993 and 1996 agreements on border management and confidence-building measures provide the foundational frameworks for day-to-day deconfliction; selective or “cherry-picked” adherence undermines credibility and makes de-escalation harder. Stabilisation should begin with renewed observance of these accords.
  • The Line of Actual Control (LAC) must be strictly observed. Any unilateral attempt to alter the status quo on the frontier — whether by occupation, incremental forward deployment, or engineering of faits accomplis — is unacceptable and must be resisted through appropriate diplomatic and military measures consistent with restraint and proportionality.
  • Disengagement and de-escalation are operationally distinct from boundary resolution. While boundary negotiations remain important, restoration of peace in the border areas is an immediate, independent task. Attempts to conflate progress in substantive boundary talks with day-to-day tranquility at the LAC will be transparent and counter-productive.
  • Many of the close-up deployments in frictional zones have been resolved through reciprocal measures that embody what one might term “equal and mutual security.” Yet unresolved positions persist and continue to cast a shadow over broader cooperation; the presence of such positions means that the abnormality at the frontier precludes a simple return to pre-crisis business as usual across other domains.
  • In assessing Chinese posture, India must privilege capability assessments over professed intent. In political cultures where rhetoric is consequential, demonstrated preparation, training and exhortation are better indicators of behaviour than textual assurances. Consequently India’s engagements must proceed “with eyes extremely wide open,” combining diplomatic outreach with hard-headed evaluation of military and infrastructural capabilities.

Operationally, stabilisation will require a combination of disciplined adherence to existing instruments, clear red-lines regarding change to the status quo, and patient technical-level diplomacy to restore certainties at the frontier. Only then can political-level engagement have the requisite space to pursue longer-term settlement.

Lessons from Recent History: Mischaracterisations, Complacency and Corrective Measures

The evolution of Indian policy toward China over the past two decades furnishes several lessons about mischaracterisation and the consequences of strategic complacency.

  • The “strategic partnership” label of 2005: While useful rhetorically to signal a desire for closer relations, the term created conceptual confusion about the true nature of bilateral ties. It encouraged a level of complacency that led to underestimation of the strategic implications of Chinese investments and activities in India’s region (for example, Chinese-built ports at Hambantota and Gwadar). Labels matter: describing a relationship as strategic without resolving foundational issues such as boundary disagreements and regional competition can produce strategic blind spots.
  • Ritualistic and unilateral affirmations of territorial integrity were insufficient. Repeated one-sided assurances about sovereignty did not generate reciprocal responsibilities or stop changes on the ground. A corrective balance in policy was therefore necessary: affirmations must be accompanied by measures that reflect reality and protect national interests.
  • Neglect of border infrastructure prior to 2014 was a symptom of casualness about the boundary dispute. The infrastructural deficit on the frontier was itself an embodiment of strategic neglect; its rectification after 2014 marked a shift in Indian posture and preparedness.
  • Underplaying Sino–Pakistani cooperation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) persisted for too long. India’s decisive articulation against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017 reflected a belated but necessary recognition of the security implications of trilateral dynamics. That move, however, did not end domestic debate. Elements of the older order continued to advocate a softer posture toward China, illustrating persistent internal divisions on strategy and the pace of adjustment.
  • Economic engagement optimism at times compromised strategic clarity. In hindsight it is striking that proposals for a free trade agreement (FTA) with China were seriously contemplated; such proposals reveal a period when economic priorities overshadowed realistic appraisal of geopolitical risk. Similarly, prior to recent crises, conducting effective domestic scrutiny of Chinese commercial activities within India was difficult, complicating policy responses to the intersection of economic and security concerns.
  • Multilateral experiments have had mixed fortunes. The collapse of the Quad in 2007 under Chinese objection signalled the practical limits of certain forms of cooperation at that time; this setback complicated the Quad’s revival a decade later. Political fashions such as “Chindia,” with Nehruvian overtones and optimistic assumptions of convergence, also exemplify the loss of strategic clarity that can follow from normative nostalgia.
  • The departures in 2020 from long-standing behavioural axioms of both sides have negative implications for strategic stability. For civilisational states such as India and China, which ought to adopt long horizons in policymaking, these departures are both surprising and disturbing.

Taken together, these lessons recommend a cautious but assertive posture: recognising where error and complacency once lay, correcting tactical deficiencies (infrastructure, intelligence, economic scrutiny), and restoring a strategic vocabulary that distinguishes rhetorical goodwill from operational security.

Bilateralism, External Alignments and the Role of the West

Historically India has adopted a predominantly bilateral approach to its outstanding issues with China. This orientation was shaped by a combination of factors: a sense of Asian solidarity, a distrust of third-party motives, and the conviction that bilateral problems should be resolved bilaterally. Nonetheless, the historical record demonstrates that external alignments have, at key junctures, been decisive.

  • Bilateralism’s strengths and limits: India’s long-term preference for bilateral negotiation yielded significant continuity and constraint in its external policy; yet it also meant that India often refrained from opportunistic leveraging of international developments. The Nehru episode in 1962—when India turned to the US and UK after Bomdila fell to the PLA—illustrates the limits of pure bilateralism in moments of acute crisis. Similarly, after 1971 India’s relationship with the USSR briefly situated its China policy within a larger global context.
  • The endings of an era: Past self-restraint sometimes created expectations — among neighbours and external actors — that others could influence or veto India’s strategic choices. The post-2014 shift in India’s posture represents, in this view, an end to that era of perceived constraint.
  • China’s differing approach: Beijing has historically been more flexible in leveraging external alignments and in cultivating asymmetric partnerships. Its elevation of ties with Pakistan — including nuclear and missile cooperation a decade after the 1950s–60s era — was tailored expressly to counterbalance India. China’s negotiating behaviour with India has often been driven by differential gains and global-context calculations rather than a stable linear logic; Beijing treats the India relationship as a component of a wider global engagement and modulates bilateral behaviour accordingly.
  • The West’s role: Popular Chinese polemics often portray Western influence as the primary problem in Asia; empirical evidence, however, shows that China itself has been active in engaging the West to advance its interests. For long stretches after 1949, India’s ties with Western countries were relatively stronger than Beijing’s; paradoxically, as India–China ties worsened over the border, Beijing increasingly portrayed India’s Western relations in hostile terms even as it deployed Western engagement for its own ends. Episodes such as China’s advocacy of a China–US “G2,” or short-lived common cause with the US over South Asian dynamics, demonstrate the inconstancy of alignments and the utility China finds in cultivating Western constituencies to insulate economic cooperation from political frictions.
  • Strategic flexibility and sovereign choice: India’s decision about how, when and to what extent it engages the West remains a sovereign prerogative. Expecting India to mirror the policy oscillations of another major power is neither realistic nor justified. That said, historical precedent makes clear that India and China can — when interests and political will align — insulate their bilateral relationship from other relationships and keep ties on a positive trajectory.
  • Avoiding simplistic binaries: India must resist tractable polarities — a zero-sum framing of China versus the West is analytically unhelpful. China has shown willingness to coordinate with Western powers when it suits Beijing’s interests; likewise, China has pursued global economic and technological gains while continuing political disputation. India’s strategic posture should be flexible enough to employ bilateral diplomacy when possible, and to leverage external relationships when necessary, without becoming captive to external agendas.
  • Countering one-sided accusations: When arguments alleging excessive Western influence are used to constrain India’s strategic choices, Indian policy discourse should reflect the same scrutiny back — “place a mirror in the room” — and thereby neutralise one-sided accusations. This reflexive posture underscores that accusations about influence are rarely unidirectional and that legitimacy in foreign policy derives from principled sovereign choices rather than rhetorical coercion.

In sum, the contemporary strategic flux is both a challenge and an opportunity. It compels India to reassess traditional approaches to China, to correct strategic blind spots, and to calibrate a posture that blends disciplined bilateralism with prudent external engagement. The objective should be clear: stabilise the frontier, re-establish the three mutuals in operational terms, and conduct diplomacy with an informed appreciation of both historical precedents and present capabilities.

Political Culture, Public Perception and Foreign‑Policy Behaviour

India and China present as neighbours with markedly different strategic personas. That difference is not merely institutional; it is civilisational and behavioural. India’s democracy means public opinion is not an epiphenomenon but a constitutive element of foreign‑policy formation. Popular perceptions of external relationships are formed quickly, exercised visibly and remembered for long periods. Elected politicians, bureaucrats and even business leaders operate in a political ecology where symbolism, faith, values and narrative have causal force. Responses to diplomatic or military slights are therefore less likely to be calibrated solely by short‑term cost–benefit analyses and more likely to harden into enduring attitudes once public sentiment crystallises.

Two consequences follow. First, foreign‑policy reversals and volte‑faces by political actors — especially those who once championed closer ties with China — are tangible and politically consequential; transitory electoral politics should be distinguished from strategic fundamentals, but public memory and value‑based reactions can constrain policy flexibility. Second, external observers who interpret Indian responses through purely utilitarian lenses risk misreading the permanence and intensity of Indian reactions. Faith, national self‑image, and the imperatives of domestic legitimacy can make some policy positions effectively immutable in the medium term, compelling policymakers to factor emotion and identity alongside material interests.

Territorial Legacy, Topography and Border Vulnerability

The physical geography and historical sequence of events continue to determine India’s strategic predicament on the northern frontier. The 1962 war left China in possession of roughly 38,000 sq. km. of territory — an outcome that altered the baseline of control along large stretches of the Line of Actual Control. Territorial adjustments made then remain relevant today: recent Chinese activities, such as bridge construction across Pangong Tso and the establishment of formalised border villages, have largely taken place in areas whose control shifted in that conflict roughly sixty years ago.

Two structural disadvantages are particularly salient. First, the inherited pattern of territorial contiguity and the incomplete exercise of sovereignty in Jammu & Kashmir after 1948 produced physical realities of deep strategic concern. The post‑Partition settlement diminished India’s regional strategic stature even as it created a subcontinental balance of forces that has endured. The failure in 1948 to consolidate full territorial control — a failure that the chapter attributes in part to ideological blinkers and the neglect of core tenets of international relations — has had long‑running consequences for strategic geometry on the subcontinent.

Second, topography creates an asymmetric security problem. Much of the boundary is easier to secure from the north than from the south; in plain terms, the approaches on the Indian side are more exposed and more difficult to defend owing to gradients, lines of supply, and the altitude profile of forward areas. This means that, unlike a frontier that is symmetrical in defensive affordances, India faces a structural vulnerability that requires continuous corrective investment in infrastructure, logistics and force posture.

Both these disadvantages were compounded by decades of relative infrastructure neglect on the Indian side. The neglect persisted until the policy pivot around 2014; since then, corrective exercises — road and airstrip construction, improved logistics chains, and enhanced forward infrastructure — have been pursued with urgency. Those initiatives are necessary but not sufficient: the border problem is as much political and strategic as it is technical, and legacy complications must be factored into any refashioning of India’s posture for a more demanding era.

Comprehensive National Power and the Need for Purpose

A second major theme is comprehensive national power. Until roughly 2014 a lack of unified strategic purpose and sustained political will on India’s side produced avoidable adverse outcomes. Technology and tactical improvisation can mitigate some risks, but they cannot substitute for long‑term choices about industrial capacity, force structure, diplomatic alignments and statecraft.

India is therefore compelled to imagine — creatively and urgently — how to confront a powerful neighbour that combines state capacity, economic leverage and regional ambitions. The visible repositioning of many former advocates of unqualified engagement with China is a symptom of a broader reassessment: realpolitik has returned to the centre of policy calculation. The appropriate policy response is straightforward in principle if demanding in practice: rapidly build deep national strengths wherever necessary and, where sensible, do so in partnership with like‑minded states. The current geopolitical landscape, shaped by intensified great‑power competition and evolving regional architectures, offers expanded possibilities for partnership. Exploiting these possibilities requires clarity of purpose, investment in capability and a strategic appetite to convert opportunity into durable advantage.

Central to this endeavour is the prioritisation of border security. Nothing is of greater consequence to India’s national strategy than the integrity of its frontiers. A government that is “fully seized of the magnitude of the challenges before it” must continue to treat the frontier as a national imperative: logistics, infrastructure, surveillance, local administration and operational readiness must be synchronised into an integrated approach to frontier defence.

Economic Foundations: Manufacturing, Supply Chains and Atmanirbhar Bharat

Economic interdependence with China was once seen by many in India as a potential stabiliser of bilateral relations; terminology such as “strategic partner” (used in 2005) reflected a prevailing optimism. Over the last decade‑and‑a‑half that optimism has been belied in part: economic ties have not inoculated politics from friction, and in some instances have become vectors of vulnerability. Two structural factors explain this outcome.

First, global supply chains that emanate from China have produced deep economic exposure across multiple sectors. Second, India’s historical difficulty in undertaking large‑scale manufacturing until recently reduced its ability to offer credible domestic alternatives. Influential voices that argued manufacturing was not India’s competence or destiny contributed unintentionally to a pattern of market access challenges, a widening bilateral trade deficit and an asymmetric economic relationship that placed India at strategic risk.

The Covid‑19 pandemic crystallised these risks for a wide public and policy audience. Massive external exposure in key inputs, components and finished goods underscored the need for domestic capacity. Atmanirbhar Bharat thus emerges not merely as a slogan but as an expression of both strategic necessity and economic capability. It is a policy to reduce critical vulnerabilities by building resilient and reliable supply chains, promoting manufacturing capacity and insisting on trust, transparency and data governance as prerequisites for deep economic engagement.

This reorientation does not entail autarky. Rather, it prescribes a departure from the complacent application of comparative‑advantage orthodoxy when facing state actors that may operate “autonomous of market forces.” Classical economic models are inadequate when competitors can instrumentally leverage every factor of production, technology and connectivity for strategic ends. India must therefore prioritise national interest in partner selection, resist quick fixes and transient concessions, and frame temporary measures of economic self‑defence as legitimate exercises in safeguarding national resilience rather than protectionist retreat.

In practice this means accelerating manufacturing capability, nurturing domestic suppliers, enforcing rules that ensure reciprocity in market access, and designing industrial policy measures that favour reliability and risk mitigation. It also requires regulatory frameworks for data, technology and connectivity that preserve sovereignty and support trusted partnerships.

Multilateral, Plurilateral Engagement and the Global Commons

India and China cohabit a variety of regional and global platforms, yet their interests increasingly diverge in arenas that shape the global commons. Differences are manifest on issues such as expansion of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), reform of the United Nations, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — particularly projects, such as the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), that India rejected forthrightly when unveiled. The chapter critiques those within India who sought workarounds or minimised the significance of CPEC, arguing that such responses missed both the symbolic and substantive message Beijing intended to convey.

India’s approach to multipolarity and rebalancing is principled and pragmatic. It will first assess how multipolarity materialises within Asia and then choose partners and alignments that accelerate India’s growth while upholding sovereign equality as a core international principle. China’s structural efforts to shape its neighbourhood — through BRI corridors that impinge on Indian sovereign concerns and through maritime modernisation that alters regional balances — have been undertaken with a narrow bilateral calculus that tends to underplay India’s rise.

In response, stewardship of the global commons has been assumed increasingly by likeminded partners who share responsibility for open seas, transparent connectivity and rule‑based order. India’s interests have correspondingly widened eastward: the conceptualisation of the Indo‑Pacific and the operationalisation of formats such as the Quad are contemporary embodiments of this widening. India’s diplomacy must guard against allowing external actors a veto over its sovereign choices; landmark statements by leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, which once framed India–China cooperation as foundational to an “Asian century,” cannot be permitted to obscure the present reality that cooperative failure between the two powers would jeopardise any shared Asian future.

The search for a modus vivendi between India and China therefore becomes a search for multipolarity in Asia: a framework that reconciles national choices, respects international law, protects the global commons and recognises sovereign equality. Economic debates run in parallel: fair trade, equal opportunities, mitigation of risk, resilient supply chains, and trust in data and connectivity must complement political and strategic engagement.

Political Narratives, Partnership Choices and the Danger of Romanticism

The chapter cautions against using political romanticism, cultural pride or post‑colonial resentments as instruments to produce a united front against external actors. Slogans such as “Asia must be for Asians” appeal to historical grievances but are unsuited to a competitive globalised reality where exclusionary tactics — seeking access while denying others the means of reciprocal engagement — are both unrealistic and self‑defeating. A culturally confident India will choose partners on the basis of national interest rather than sentiment, and will resist simplistic binaries that fetishise civilisational identity over strategic calculus.

Policy Prescriptions: Defence, Economics and Diplomacy

The practical policy architecture that emerges from these analyses centres on three domains.

  • Defence: India must continue to create a fitter, more mobile and technology‑enabled military posture. Peace and tranquillity on the border are necessary preconditions for normal state‑to‑state relations, but they are analytically distinct from a resolution of the boundary question. Even the lower bar — non‑escalation and non‑use of force to change the status quo — was breached in 2020, highlighting the urgency of immediate capability upgrades. The appropriate response is a mix of boots‑on‑the‑ground investments, forward infrastructure, force modernisation and intelligent application of surveillance, sensors and other force‑multiplying technologies. The mix should be continually refreshed to reflect changing operational realities.

  • Economy: Promoting manufacturing and treating Atmanirbhar Bharat as a strategic long‑term initiative remain imperative. India must build domestic alternatives through targeted industrial policy, public–private partnerships, and investment in skills and technology. Interim measures of economic self‑defence against unfair trade practices should be framed as defensible preservation of national interest, not protectionist retrenchment.

  • Diplomacy: India must widen and deepen relationships across regions and like‑minded coalitions, explicate its strategic priorities more effectively, and compete in its immediate periphery while engaging on global platforms about norms, law and governance. Multilateral engagement should be pursued where interests align, recognising that divergence with China on issues such as NSG expansion, UN reform and the BRI will persist.

Establishing a stable balance with China after 2020 will be difficult. If such a balance is achievable, it must be sustained on a set of mutual understandings — the chapter refers to these as “three mutuals” without explicit enumeration. Reasonably, the “three mutuals” can be read to imply: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; mutual restraint in using force or coercion to change facts on the ground; and mutual commitment to negotiations conducted on the basis of equality and international law. Whatever their precise content, any durable arrangement will require disciplined diplomacy, reciprocal verification measures, and a credible enforcement logic embedded in mutual capability.

New Normals, Strategic Realism and India as Bharat

The last few years have produced serious challenges for India–China ties and for regional stability. Persisting tensions will generate new “normals of posture” — long‑term changes in deployment, diplomatic practice and economic strategy — and corresponding “normals of strategy.” Indian choices now will have profound repercussions not only bilaterally but for the larger Asian and global order.

An India whose approach to China is steeped in realism — combining capability‑building, pragmatic diplomacy, domestic resilience and clear articulation of national interest — will strengthen its global image as “Bharat.” That posture requires patience, strategic confidence and practical delivery on the ground rather than rhetorical excess.