India-China and the test of trust

India and China are attempting to manage a difficult relationship through dialogue, confidence-building and limited border agreements. But the real test lies in whether these measures can build trust and eventually contribute to a broader settlement, rather than simply making a deeply unresolved dispute more manageable

Delhi’s intellectual discussion on China is indefensible in its intensity, while much of the wider social discussion rarely rises above the level of lay discourse. Some say engagement is the answer, others instinctively distrust Beijing, while a smaller group argues that India has little choice but to go along with China. Last week in New Delhi, I attended a discussion on China’s grand strategy in which senior retired diplomats, military leaders and strategic thinkers argued over precisely this problem. The room was full of people from different generations who listened carefully, took notes and asked difficult questions. What was striking was not agreement but the absence of any easy answer. Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval travelled to Beijing for the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, while India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was in Moscow. The juxtaposition was revealing. India is attempting to manage several strategic theatres simultaneously, at a moment when the international system is becoming considerably less predictable. The India-China question can no longer be treated as a narrow Himalayan dispute. It is becoming one of the central tests of whether Asia can construct its own security order or remain trapped in rivalries shaped by powers operating beyond the continent.

The immediate question is what exactly happened in Beijing on August 25. The answer is more complicated than the increasingly casual description of an India-China “early harvest” suggests. The two sides agreed on eight points, including advancing discussions on an “Early and Substantial Harvest” concerning boundary delimitation and border management, establishing additional military meeting points and hotlines, improving mechanisms for dealing with incidents along the Line of Actual Control, expanding border cooperation, resuming discussions on trans-border rivers and holding the 26th Special Representatives’ meeting in India in 2027. Both governments also reaffirmed the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question as the framework for pursuing a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement.

The Indian and Chinese statements are substantially aligned on the eight outcomes, but the political interpretation surrounding them is not necessarily identical. The crucial phrase is “Early and Substantial Harvest”. That formulation leaves open an important question about sequencing. Can progress in selected areas of boundary delimitation and border management generate sufficient confidence for a wider settlement, or could a series of limited arrangements gradually become a substitute for resolving the larger territorial dispute? That is not a semantic question. It goes to the heart of whether the present process is designed to move towards a settlement or simply to make an unresolved dispute more manageable.

This is why the 2005 agreement cannot be treated as diplomatic wallpaper. It established political parameters and guiding principles for settlement and remains the principal framework repeatedly invoked by both sides. The significance of the present moment is therefore not that India and China have suddenly discovered dialogue. They have been talking for decades. The significance is that the two governments are now experimenting with how much of the boundary problem can be separated into manageable components while retaining the broader political framework intended to guide a settlement. That distinction will determine whether the present process becomes a bridge towards settlement or another mechanism for postponing it.

There is a bumpy historical lesson here. India has repeatedly approached China through the assumption that political reassurance, personal diplomacy and incremental accommodation can create sufficient confidence for the substantive territorial question eventually to become negotiable. Beijing has generally approached the problem differently. It has tended to combine negotiations with military preparation, economic leverage, diplomatic positioning and the gradual creation of facts on the ground. This does not mean every Chinese move is part of a single secret master plan. That interpretation is too simplistic. China’s strategy is more sophisticated precisely because different instruments can reinforce one another without necessarily being directed through one visible blueprint.

That point was made forcefully during the New Delhi discussion I attended. The argument was not that China possesses a single document called a “grand strategy” which explains everything Beijing does. Rather, there is a remarkable continuity in China’s strategic direction across different leaderships. One speaker traced this through the Chinese idea of national rejuvenation, arguing that it did not begin with Xi Jinping and cannot simply be explained by communism. China’s territorial conception, the importance attached to Tibet and the broader desire to restore national strength have deeper roots. The distinction matters because it prevents India from making the convenient mistake of believing that the problem will disappear with a change of Chinese leadership.

The ancient strategic tradition also deserves more serious attention than the fashionable invocation of Sun Tzu. “Winning without fighting” is frequently quoted as though it were a Chinese instruction manual for modern geopolitics. According to Professor Srikanth Kondapalli of Jawaharlal Nehru University, it is not. But the wider intellectual tradition does contain a persistent emphasis on shaping circumstances before confrontation becomes necessary. Zhang Yi, the strategist of the Warring States period, offered a particularly revealing conception of power. His description of Qin was not simply about battlefield strength. Territory, economic resources, military organisation, geography, disciplined administration and the ability to deter opponents were treated as mutually reinforcing components of national power. The lesson for modern India is not to imitate ancient China. It is to understand that negotiations take place within a structure of relative power. Diplomacy does not suspend asymmetry. It operates inside it.

This is why the early-harvest idea is both attractive and dangerous. Better border communication, military hotlines and procedures can help prevent local incidents from escalating. The agreement’s emphasis on prompt diplomatic and military communication is therefore important.

One of the strongest points raised during the New Delhi discussion was that India’s most credible advantage against a vastly larger Chinese economy and military establishment may not come from trying to match China platform for platform on land. India’s geography gives it leverage across the Indian Ocean. It does not mean India should seek confrontation with the Chinese Navy. It means India possesses strategic geography that can complicate China’s calculations. Conventional deterrence therefore need not mean threatening war. It can mean making the costs of coercion sufficiently uncertain that coercion becomes unattractive.

China understands this logic. That is precisely why its maritime presence in the Indian Ocean has expanded and why its relationships with Pakistan and other countries surrounding India matter. Beijing does not need to defeat India directly to constrain Indian strategic freedom. It can impose costs across multiple fronts, keep Indian military resources tied down in the Himalayas, deepen its economic penetration of South Asia and strengthen relationships in India’s immediate neighbourhood. The strategic problem for New Delhi is therefore not one Chinese tank or one disputed mountain. It is the cumulative effect of several pressures operating simultaneously.

The real challenge is to establish whether Beijing and New Delhi can negotiate without trying to deceive one another about the nature of the bargain. India needs to know whether an early harvest is genuinely intended as a pathway towards a wider settlement or whether it could eventually freeze the status quo in ways that favour the stronger side. China needs to know whether India’s strategic partnerships are intended to contain China or simply to preserve India’s freedom of action. Both sides have legitimate security concerns. Neither has the luxury of pretending that the other will disappear.

The real challenge is to establish whether Beijing and New Delhi can negotiate without trying to deceive one another about the nature of the bargain. India needs to know whether an early harvest is genuinely intended as a pathway towards a wider settlement or whether it could eventually freeze the status quo in ways that favour the stronger side

The writer is a columnist based in Colombo; Views presented are personal.