India and China Are Feeling for Ways to Smooth Out Contradictions

In recent years, the world has been changing rapidly, and the times of unipolarity and US dominance in the international arena are becoming a thing of the past. Today, perhaps, no one will deny that we are witnessing the revival of Russia, the noticeable rise of China, and the significant growth of India. In this regard, the difficult relations between the latter two countries play a major role not only in Asia, but throughout the world. Let us dwell on the relations between New Delhi and Beijing in more detail.

Speaking at a conference organized by The Hindustan Times newspaper recently, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that the decision reached between India and China to disengage troops on the border could give impetus to improving ties between the two countries. “Right now, we are focused on disengagement. Where will disengagement take us? It is reasonable to assume that there will be some improvement in ties,” he said.

In his speech, the head of the Indian external affairs agency also explained why relations between New Delhi and Beijing are not easy. “How do you get some kind of equilibrium or stability when two big countries are changing so profoundly next to each other? Even though we are next to each other, it is quite clear that in many ways the societies are very different. We have very different policies, different economies. What we consider to be merits and virtues may not always be the same. All these things need to be taken into account, and that is why the relationship is so difficult”, Jaishankar explained.

The Indian Foreign Minister was referring to the fact that India and China are pulling back troops from the border in two border areas in Eastern Ladakh following an armed conflict in 2020. Notably, this move comes after the first meeting of the leaders of the two countries in five years, which took place on October 23 on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan. That meeting became one of the sensations of the forum, given that the parties did not confirm its preparation until the last moment. It was then that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to maintain peace on the border in the Himalayas. Following the meeting in Kazan, the Chinese leader said that India and China should “maintain a healthy strategic perception of each other and find the right path for large neighboring countries to live in harmony and develop side by side.” According to him, China and India should build their relations as partners, not as rivals, and should no longer pose a threat to each other.

In turn, the responses from the Indian side were also very positive and filled with optimism, unusual for official New Delhi in recent years. Thus, before leaving Kazan, Narendra Modi wrote on the social network X that “relations between India and China are important for the peoples of both countries, as well as for regional and global peace and stability.” And the first deputy head of the Indian Foreign Ministry, Vikram Misri, emphasized the importance of ensuring that disagreements on border issues do not disturb peace and tranquility in the region.

This is a good time to cite a publication in The Indian Express (TIE) newspaper, which states that the military personnel of the two countries have already completed dismantling temporary structures in Eastern Ladakh and are checking the elimination of these facilities by the other side using drones. However, according to the sources of the publication, it is premature to talk about a complete withdrawal of the Indian military contingent from this region.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that the withdrawal of troops from two areas of Eastern Ladakh at once has become the most noticeable stage of de-escalation after four years of a war of nerves along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayas, where the disputed border between the countries runs. It is believed that further steps require a broader consensus between the parties on the issue of border patrolling, which has not yet been achieved. In the near future, as TIE indicates, the Indian Armed Forces and the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) will resume coordinated patrols in the areas of troop withdrawal, which have not been carried out for the past four years. By the way, the US State Department reacted not without offense to the reports about the agreement between New Delhi and Beijing on the withdrawal of troops in Ladakh. It turns out that India did not inform Washington about this, which caused obvious disappointment there, to say the least.

Another sign of normalization of relations between New Delhi and Beijing can be considered the participation of the head of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jaishankar in the meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states held in Pakistan in mid-October. In his speech in Islamabad, let us note, the capital of Pakistan, which is hostile to India and has close ties with China, Jaishankar called on the participants of the meeting to “strengthen mutual trust, friendship and good neighborliness.” It can be assumed with a certain degree of certainty that the head of the Indian foreign policy department, when uttering these words, had in mind neighboring China, one of the founders and “locomotive” of the SCO. It seems that strengthening Indian-Chinese trust is of great importance not only for New Delhi and Beijing, but also for Russia, as well as for the entire non-Western world. It is for this reason that the meeting of the leaders of India and China in Kazan is of particular importance. There is no doubt that the US should ultimately be deprived of the opportunity to influence relations in the RIC (Russia-India-China) triangle, and the West as a whole should stop its attempts to use New Delhi in its confrontation with Beijing. This fact, in particular, is pointed out by the Indian newspaper The Print, which claims that India’s national interests require improving relations with China, and the West should not be allowed to interfere in the relations of two sovereign states. Therefore, geopolitically fencing off from the West and America in this matter is entirely in India’s interests, the publication is confident.

The rapidly evolving international order moving toward multipolarity appears to be prompting policymakers in India and China to consider ways to break the impasse in their bilateral relations. A key factor here may be that New Delhi’s relationship with Beijing is remarkably calm compared to the turbulent and violent changes in the wider international system that have taken place in the past few years.

Ironically, even the tensions in India-China relations appear more peaceful, stable, and predictable than those between other great powers. For example, the United States and Russia, which are engaged in a destructive proxy war that is in many ways worse than their Cold War standoff, or the United States and China, which are mired in mutual mistrust and uncertainty.

Clearly, with some warming in India-China relations, presumably brokered by Moscow, Russia will not have to make a difficult choice between its two key strategic partners in Asia. It is no coincidence that the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post called the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the capital of Tatarstan “a personal victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.” The publication also recalls that in recent years, Moscow has called on New Delhi and Beijing to resolve bilateral problems including in Eastern Ladakh without the intervention of external forces.

In conclusion one would like to note that one of the geopolitical consequences of the rapprochement between India and China should be their more active interaction in defending the interests of the states of the Global South. It is no coincidence that many experts believe that it was precisely the tension between the two most populous states in the world that has prevented the countries of the South from presenting a united front until now. However, the easing of tensions in relations between New Delhi and Beijing opens the way to a new united global majority in the confrontation with the Western countries led by the United States.

Sergey Saenko,
international Observer

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