India-China thaw: Strategic signalling, not concession

Earlier this month, it was announced that India is resuming the issuance of tourist visas for Chinese citizens. Just before this, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval visited China for meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to China shortly after and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was the first such meeting since the Galwan Valley clash of 2020. This is a strategic signal from India amidst new circumstances created by some of the most powerful states in the existing international system.

India’s recent uptick in diplomatic ties with China is not a concession; instead, it reflects India’s calculated posture of strategic signalling. With the bilateral trade agreement with the US currently stalled and the global economic landscape shifting rapidly, India is engaging with China not to resolve old disputes but to gain strategic leverage through the creation of optics.

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Since late 2024, India and China have entered into a deliberate but structural phase to engage with each other to reduce tensions along the Himalayan border. After experiencing four years of protected standoff following the deadly Galwan face-off, the diplomatic levers have shifted. The latest phase began with an important breakthrough on October 21, 2024, when both countries agreed on a border pact, letting each other patrol at previously restricted friction points like Depsang and Demchok. The agreement helped significantly in restoring trust and establishing communication between two powerful neighbours.

After this agreement there has been a flurry of diplomatic exchanges between both the powers. These consistent meetings, though, suggest a pattern in which both nations are trying to reduce mistrust and restore a dialogue to prevent further crisis. Both nations are engaging at a greater pace than they ever were doing. For India, this is about asserting sovereignty while avoiding conflict. For China, it is about projecting stability along its southern frontier as it faces growing pressure in the Western Pacific and domestic economic headwinds.

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Yet the question remains: Why is India doing this now when the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is still contested? New Delhi is pursuing economic de-risking, not decoupling from China. Despite all the geopolitical friction, India remains deeply entwined with Chinese capital, tech, and rare earth dependencies. India acknowledges this fact and is opting for stability management. Chasing a compartmentalised relationship that seeks to discuss boundary questions without foreclosing economic activities.

However, India finds itself in utmost precarity when China also responded with bans and curbs on rare earth materials. Additionally, in an attempt to limit technology transfers to India, along with skilled workers, the Chinese government has recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians from Foxconn’s iPhone factories in India. Foxconn is meeting the shortages by bringing in Taiwanese technicians. India is neither unaware nor unresponsive.

Similarly, the suspicion runs through: Will this ongoing round of discussions succeed in producing lasting peace, or is it merely a tactical de-escalation? Historical experience suggests otherwise. The Galwan incursions occurred in the backdrop of the Wuhan summit in 2018 and the Chennai informal summit in 2019, which were also celebrated as turning points.

Also, the fundamental issue, the differing perceptions of the LAC, remains unresolved. Confidence-building is underway, but confidence itself remains fragile. The recent diplomatic engagements in Beijing, including discussions on “de-escalation” and “normalising people-to-people exchange”, occur against a backdrop where India perceives the complete resolution of the border issue as a prerequisite for normal relations, while China prefers to compartmentalise the border issue, pushing for cooperation while maintaining territorial claims and even military posturing.

While both sides have expressed a desire for a “positive trajectory” and optimism for “stable and constructive ties”, the talks were steered towards managing disagreements rather than fundamentally resolving them. Opening direct air services and the Kailash Manasarovar yatra are positive steps but do not address the core issue of strategic and territorial disputes.

Beijing, on the other hand, strongly objected to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public birthday greeting to the Dalai Lama in July 2025, reiterating its opposition to any official engagement with the Tibetan spiritual leader. While both nations appear to agree on the need for immediate stability, their long-term goals diverge. India seeks a restoration of the pre-2020 border status and a rules-based order in Asia and elsewhere; China, meanwhile, aims to assert regional influence with and without direct confrontation, and examples range from Doklam to Galwan to China trying to wipe out the identity of Tibet, building the biggest dam on the Yarlung Tsanpo to throttle the downstream Brahmaputra River in India, and so on.

Operation Sindoor also served as an indirect test of tensions between India and China. Beijing’s response, calling India’s retaliation against terrorism “unfortunate”, caused a rift in New Delhi. While urging “restraint on all sides", China notably refrained from denouncing the terror provocation or addressing India’s security concerns. After Operation Sindoor, the deputy chief of army staff for India also issued a warning on Sino-Pakistan collusion during the operation.

If there’s one significant shift in India’s approach, it is a more layered diplomacy—engaging China bilaterally but also within the framework of multilateral forums like the SCO and Brics, while continuing strategic balancing elsewhere. It is not containment nor alignment, but calibrated coexistence. For Beijing too, stabilising ties with Delhi serves a larger goal: preventing a second front while managing the US pressure in East Asia. Given that the US has lifted export restrictions on Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) tools and software bound for Chinese buyers, and the EU is desperately engaging with China, there is no clarity on whether India can ever count on Western powers.

India understands China as a threat and has been at the receiving end of more conflicts, military and otherwise, with China than any other country in the world. However, it is also a neighbour and a powerful one, with which India will have to manage its relationship. There is no better way in such a complex scenario except diplomacy and optics.

Sriparna Pathak is a professor of China Studies at OP Jindal Global University and a senior fellow at the Jindal India Institute. Gaurav Sen is a senior research fellow at the School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi. He is the author of the book ‘Peril of the Pacific: Military Balance and Battle for Taiwan’. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.