For years, New Delhi and Beijing have circled each other with suspicion, managing crises along the Himalayan border while competing in global markets and diplomatic spheres. But at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, the mood shifted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping signalled a new chapter in Asia’s most fraught bilateral relationship by declaring that India and China are “partners, not rivals”. The summit saw Xi unveil a four-point plan: tighter strategic communication, deeper economic ties, greater people-to-people exchange, and closer coordination in multilateral forums. India responded positively by restoring direct flights, easing visa and pilgrimage restrictions, and moving toward the lifting of Chinese export curbs on critical raw materials. Behind the scenes, what helped break the ice was a confidential letter from Xi to New Delhi, an unusual personal outreach that set the stage for Modi’s trip to China; the first in seven years. Indian officials now describe this as “pragmatic diplomacy,” a hedge against mounting pressure from Washington. Trump’s trade war with Beijing remains fierce, but he has refrained from singling China out over its dealings with Moscow in the way he has targeted India with 50 per cent tariffs. Perhaps Trump’s adoration of strongmen like Xi signals an infatuation of cowardice that stops him from crossing the line. India’s willingness to buy discounted Russian crude and weapons despite Western sanctions has infuriated Washington. As India edges closer to BRICS and continues a posture of strategic autonomy, Trump’s team sees it as drifting away. Trump, ironically, has nudged India toward engaging with China; an outcome opposite to what Washington intended. For New Delhi, the renewed outreach to Beijing is less about trust and more about leverage.
Xi isn’t fooled. He is being courted. India is looking for strategic autonomy. Modi’s trip is not friendship but leashed hedging. China courts without conceding. It deepens its bond with Pakistan and softens borders with India, benefiting from US vacillation. Beijing positions itself as the “predictable neighbour”, while America looks like the mercurial patron. Pakistan, too, thrives in this environment. Trump’s dalliance with Islamabad gives China cover to demand better CPEC security while letting Washington pick up the bill for Pakistan’s fiscal bleeding. Islamabad once played Washington against Moscow; today it plays Washington against Beijing, and the dividends keep flowing.
As Washington tightens the tariff screws on New Delhi, another courtship is quietly unfolding elsewhere. Several powerful EU member states are wooing India as a partner in reshaping the global order. The EU and India have launched a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) to cooperate on semiconductors, AI, clean energy, and supply chain resilience which are central to future economic security. Brussels is also backing the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), pitched as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden are expanding military dialogues and dual-use technology projects with India which has joined Europe’s 7.1 billion Euro Eurodrone programme as an observer; an unprecedented step toward high-tech defense collaboration. With transatlantic relations uncertain under Donald Trump’s second presidency, and China an increasingly unreliable partner, India represents both a vast market and a strategic balancer in Asia for Europe.
For India, which has spent the better part of a decade aligning itself closer with the US and railing against Chinese expansionism, this new bonhomie signals not just a tactical shift but a narrative gamble. The Prime Minister’s foreign policy image had taken a beating. Once celebrated as a global-hugging statesman, Modi today faces an embattled foreign outlook. Standing beside Xi offers Modi a chance to rebrand himself. The optics of reconciliation with a giant neighbour can be spun as statesmanlike pragmatism. For Modi’s supporters, this could revive the image of a leader who bends global equations to his will. Yet critics argue that Modi is turning to a former adversary out of sheer necessity. His foreign policy, they contend, is boxed in by Trump’s tariff war, Russia’s international isolation, and a weakening Indian economy. To embrace Xi at this moment risks looking less like a masterstroke and more like a scramble for survival. Will voters see Modi’s sudden warmth toward Xi as a betrayal of nationalist posturing? Or will they accept the pragmatic argument that India cannot afford permanent hostility with its largest neighbour? If Modi can frame the rapprochement as a victory for India’s autonomy, by standing tall against both Washington’s pressure and Beijing’s overreach, he may yet salvage the Vishwaguru trope, somewhat diluted. He has rightly ignored Trump’s phone calls and harshly rejected the real estate mogul’s request for a Nobel Peace Prize recommendation. But if the Indo-China thaw is seen as capitulation to circumstances, the handshakes in Tianjin could reinforce an uncomfortable truth that India’s foreign policy is being driven not by strength, but by necessity.