India’s path to restoring normalcy with China is fraught with challenges, including a significant trust deficit and complex border disputes

Now that India and China have reached an agreement on disengagement and patrolling in Depsang and Demchok in a step towards resolving the over four-year-long military confrontation in eastern Ladakh, can New Delhi sit back with a quiet sense of achievement? More importantly, can China be trusted to do what it has promised during bilateral meetings, including the recent one between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the margins of the recent BRICS summit? The answer is a firm ‘No’.

For, even though the two Asian giants have seemingly buried the hatchet for now with the new pact being endorsed by their top leaders at Kazan in Russia on October 22, the yawning trust deficit that now marks bilateral ties is unlikely to be bridged any time soon. To be sure, there is not going to be a repeat of the bonhomie witnessed during the Modi-Xi informal summit meetings in Wuhan and Mamallapuram in 2018 and 2019, respectively. When the two leaders met in Kazan, there was expectedly none of the warmth seen during the informal summits. The thaw may have happened, but a long road lies ahead for bilateral ties to warm up.

Instead, what Beijing has to deal with now is a hard-nosed New Delhi that’s wizened up to China’s perfidious territorial aggression. India has done well in standing up to Chinese belligerence in eastern Ladakh and in conveying to Beijing that it cannot be business as usual in the face of its brazen flouting of all bilateral border accords. The ongoing eastern Ladakh military confrontation, part of the larger boundary dispute along the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC), is nowhere near de-escalation to the pre-April 2020 situation.

While the phased disengagement at Depsang and Demchok is a welcome development, New Delhi should not let its guard down. It can do so only at its peril, given Chinese machinations along the LAC and its “salami-slicing” tactics to grab disputed territories. In any case, disengagement is just the first step with de-escalation and finally de-induction of troops being part of India’s roadmap for the restoration of status quo ante. It’s also laid out the red line for Beijing – the need for “peace and tranquility on the border”.

What has been equally worrying for New Delhi is China’s territorial aggression with neighbouring Bhutan too. It has sought to bully the tiny Himalayan kingdoms and appropriate its territory. With such moves posing a strategic threat to India, the Indian Army stepped in to block Chinese troops from building a road in the Doklam plateau area near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet trijunction in 2017. The rival troops had disengaged after a 73-day face-off, but China has permanently deployed troops in north Doklam since then.

What the Chinese PLA sought to do in eastern Ladakh with multiple incursions in the summer of 2020 too was part of its salami-slicing tactics. Bilateral ties went into a deep freeze soon after the bloody clashes in Galwan on June 15, 2020, which left 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese personnel dead.

With the slight easing of tensions now, India will need to tread cautiously. Normalcy in ties seems a long way off but even some measure of stability in the relationship between the two Asian rivals will be a positive development.

For India, this is especially important as it also has a nuclear-armed hostile neighbour in Pakistan on its western borders. A two-front military challenge can bog India down in the region, hobbling its aspiration to be a global powerhouse.

The China-Pakistan collusive axis queers the pitch for India. With frosty ties with Pakistan, New Delhi must begin mending ties with Beijing. Towards this end, Modi and Xi have agreed to resume the meetings of the Special Representatives (SRs) of the two countries “to oversee the management of peace and tranquility in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question”.

The SRs mechanism was set up in 2003, with 22 rounds of talks being held till now. It has not been met since 2019. However, given the complexity of the boundary question and Beijing’s own feet dragging on a resolution, the SR mechanism at best serves as a means for the two sides to remain in dialogue.

As New Delhi and Beijing work to bring down tensions, the boundary question will continue to bedevil ties. India’s level of mistrust of China will remain high given that it has failed to adhere to previous agreements to maintain peace and tranquility on the border.

Beijing, on its part, will remain watchful and wary of India’s deepening ties with the US as well as other Quad members. Its active role in the Indo-Pacific construct and Quad – both seen as a counter to China’s growing hegemony -- has Beijing worried.

That said, India knows it has no option but to deal with China, owing to its geographical proximity as well as Beijing’s economic-industrial clout. The bilateral economic and trade relations are heavily titled in China’s favour. India imported $101.7 billion worth of goods from China in 2023-24, way more than from any other country. On the other hand, India’s exports to China were worth only $16.7 billion, a mammoth trade deficit for New Delhi.

India depends heavily on imports from China in many sectors, like industrial machinery, telecom, electronics, electrical equipment, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, iron, steel and the like. In certain sectors, like pharmaceuticals, Indian manufacturers will find it difficult to operate without imports from China.

Despite many steps and policy decisions taken by the Indian government to move towards greater balance in trade, more so after the current border problem erupted, the imbalance has only further accentuated. In this, economics is trumping politics or national sentiment.

On the military front, India should not slacken in dealing with China with a firm hand, as it has done since the Galwan clashes.

It should also redouble efforts to push for a resolution of the different issues, including the border question. With the festering territorial dispute having long-term strategic implications for India, it needs to strike the right balance between rebuilding trust and proceeding with caution.

 (The writer is a senior journalist who writes on strategic affairs; views are personal)