At a glance
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EditorialsIndia ChinaLine Of Actual ControlGalwanDoklam1962 WarITBPDeterrence
China is at once India's largest trading partner in goods and its most serious long-term security challenge, sharing a long, unsettled border that has produced repeated military crises. How should India manage a relationship that is simultaneously deeply economic and deeply adversarial, neither drifting into conflict nor accepting coercion?
- The border is unsettled along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), about 3,488 km, divided into the western (Ladakh), middle and eastern (Arunachal Pradesh) sectors. The McMahon Line (1914) is India's claim in the east; China disputes it.
- The 1962 war ended in a Chinese offensive and a unilateral Chinese withdrawal, and froze the dispute. India holds that China occupies Aksai Chin; China claims Arunachal Pradesh as "South Tibet".
- Crises have recurred: the Doklam standoff (2017) on the India-China-Bhutan trijunction, and the Galwan Valley clash (June 2020) in eastern Ladakh, the first deadly border clash in decades, after which both sides massed forces and held many rounds of military and diplomatic talks on disengagement (verify the latest status of disengagement and patrolling arrangements).
- The frontier is guarded for India by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in support of the Army, in high-altitude terrain.
- The relationship has a thick layer of mechanisms: the Special Representatives dialogue on the boundary question, agreements on Peace and Tranquillity (1993) and Confidence Building Measures (1996), and the Border Personnel Meeting points. China's wider posture, the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (which passes through territory India claims), and a growing presence in the Indian Ocean, shapes India's strategic calculus.
- The economic paradox: large bilateral trade with a persistent deficit in China's favour, even as security tensions rise, raising debates about strategic dependence in sectors such as pharmaceuticals inputs and electronics.
For a firm, deterrence-led posture
- China has used salami-slicing and incremental pressure along the LAC; only credible deterrence (border infrastructure, force readiness, the ITBP and Army presence, partnerships such as the Quad) discourages coercion.
- Strategic dependence on Chinese supply chains is a vulnerability that India should reduce through diversification and domestic capability.
For sustained engagement and stability
- Two nuclear-armed neighbours sharing a long border have an overriding interest in avoiding escalation; diplomatic and military channels, CBMs and trade are stabilisers, not weaknesses.
- Decoupling is costly and partial; managed interdependence, with selective de-risking in critical sectors, is more realistic than wholesale economic confrontation.
The durable approach is deterrence plus engagement, with strategic autonomy. Maintain credible defence and improved border infrastructure so that coercion does not pay; keep the diplomatic and military dialogue channels open to manage the LAC and prevent escalation; de-risk critical supply chains without seeking a futile total decoupling; and balance China through partnerships (the Quad, Indo-Pacific cooperation, neighbourhood ties) while preserving India's traditional strategic autonomy rather than locking into any bloc. The aim is a stable, non-coercive border and a relationship India manages on its own terms.
Few relationships test a nation's statecraft like one with a neighbour who is both your largest market and your gravest strategic rival. India must learn the discipline of dealing with China on two tracks at once, deterring its coercion at the frontier while keeping the channels of trade and talk open, never confusing firmness with hostility or engagement with submission.
Thesis to adapt: India should manage China through deterrence and engagement together, holding the line at the border, de-risking critical dependencies, and preserving its strategic autonomy.