Independent India and China: From Border Clashes to Broader Ambitions

Introduction:

The ambitions of the two largest nations in the world, China and India, have grown in the 21st century and they have grown in conflict as well. The relationship between these two nations is defined by an asymmetrical power dynamic and correspondingly, a mostly one-sided rivalry. Within the past several years, their relationship has broken down into a toxic feud. But it was not always this way. The two newly independent civilization-states seemed to share many views of the international order in common as was seen in the 1955 Bandung Conference. Now, their interests seem farther apart than ever, even as India has much to gain from the multipolarity that China is pushing the world into. Why is this? The reasons for this strained relationship stems from a deep mutual distrust stemming from their disputed border and the status of Tibet. India’s threat perception especially has only increased due to China’s rising influence in South Asia as India fears of Chinese domination of the region and an undermining of India’s goal of regional hegemony and great power status.

Young Nations, Ancient Civilizations:

The high tensions that have defined the Sino-Indian relationship from the second half of the 20th century until today were not always there, but they may have been inevitable. Since the 1920s and 30s, there was communication between the respective nationalist movements. The Nationalist Guomondong (KMT) government in China and the Indian National Congress had become connected through the intermediary of Tan Yunshan. Tan was a Buddhist scholar who taught Chinese at an Indian university, Cheena Bhavana, through the invitation of Rabindranath Tagore (Tsu).

Tagore, an avowed Pan-Asianist and anti-imperialist, had recently been to China. His presence was met with unenthusiastic and sometimes downright hostile responses by the Chinese, but his relationship with Tan Yunshan built a better foundation for the nascent national movements. Tan proved to be an adept intermediary. He was a marginal scholar in China, not associated with the May 4th Movement, and his beliefs were actually quite counter to the radical energies of the time. Tan was a devout Buddhist who saw Eastern spirituality as a salve that could bring great unity in Sino-Indian relations against their shared disillusionment with capitalist modernity (Tsu).

The KMT’s violent break with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and tilt toward more pan-Asianist rhetoric led to the founding of the New Asia Society. The New Asia Society was a party body that sought to advance pan-Asian goals for the non-Han. The Indian independence movement was featured prominently in the New Asia journal, and there appeared to be real congruence in their emerging nationalist interests (Tsu).

In the aftermath of WWII, as the Cold War began to take shape, the new leader of India, Jawaharlal Nehru appeared to be sympathetic to communism, alarming the KMT government to the North which was currently in a vicious civil war with the CCP. At the same time, Indo-Soviet relations had been becoming friendlier, so as the CCP emerged as the victors of the Chinese Civil War, it seemed likely that relations could continue to improve (Tsu).

In the 1950s, the two countries declared that they had “purported friendship and ideological congruence around anti-imperialist foreign policy objectives” (Biba). Nehru even supported what he saw as China defending themselves in the Korean War against Western aggression (Vertzberger 63). The 1955 Bandung Conference made their ideological congruence clear as Nehru inaugurated the Non-Alignment Movement that sought a third path between the Communist and Capitalist Blocs, but Zhou Enlai as Premier of China, was widely reported as stealing the show (Tsu). Despite tensions in sharing the spotlight, this was a landmark event that put India and China as the vanguards of the anti-imperialist Non-Aligned Movement. Their interests seemed aligned and Nehru especially was optimistic about Sino-Indian relations, but the mood would soon change.

The Tibetan Issue:

The Calm Before the Storm

In the era of good feelings between the two civilization-states, there was still conflict over border demarcation and the status of Tibet. Under the British Raj, Tibet became another pawn in the Great Game with Russia, but like the British’s two invasions of Afghanistan, it was not because of actual ambition to control the area but rather in an effort to form a buffer state. Eventually, an agreement between the Tibetans and the British for the border known as the McMahon Line was agreed upon. The Chinese were not party to the agreement in Simla, but they initialed the agreement because they viewed the Tibetan government as a “vassal state” and did not want to acknowledge themselves as an independent state that was capable of making their own agreements (Vertzberger 63).

After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Tibet would not be under Chinese control until the Chinese occupation in 1950. Many in India were outraged by the seemingly brazen take over, but India was crucial in mediating the matter in the United Nations, producing the Seventeen Points Agreement that agreed that Tibet would have some autonomy and their way of life preserved. Three years later, the Panch Sheel Agreement was signed that gave India a special status for trade and travel to Tibet (Vertzberger 64). Tensions had flared up, but all seemed to be well.

A Turning Point

Prime Minister Nehru was notified in 1959 that the 14th Dalai Lama was fleeing to India, and he was welcomed wholeheartedly by the Indian government. The Dalai Lama stayed in the Tawang Monastery next to the border for sometime. The Chinese responded by saying that they would “undertake a comprehensive survey of the Indian-Chinese border” (NYTimes). 

China began building roads in areas claimed by India and in September 1959, they declared the eastern, central, and western sectors of the border invalid because the McMahon Line was illegal according to China (Vertzberger 65). In 1961, they began to militarize the border along Tibet, leading Nehru to enact his “Forward Policy” - “active patrolling and the establishment of military outposts in territories claimed or occupied by the Chinese, so long as any direct encounter with Chinese troops was avoided” (Vertzberger 66).

On September 8, 1962, after much tension in letter exchanges between Nehru and Zhou Enlai, the Chinese crossed the McMahon Line into India. After defeating the Indian army multiple times, the Chinese recollected and waited for the Indian response (Vertzberger 66). Nehru’s “Forward Policy” had upset CCP leadership leading up to the clash. They warned the Indians that “He who plays with fire will be consumed by fire” (Whiting). The Indians refused to change their posture, so the Chinese declared a unilateral ceasefire and crossed back onto their side of the McMahon Line (Whiting).

For India, this was an existential crisis. They viewed the crossing of the McMahon Line as legally unjustified and an affront to the Indian nation. In the lead up to the war, Nehru did not imagine that the tension could become war (Vertzberger 71). Prime Minister Nehru was further confused by the Chinese view that the law was subservient to China’s political aims, leading to crucial strategic missteps that resulted in war (Vertzberger 156). The Maoist view that peace was a tactical rather than value-based state of affairs and that coexistence and war were not mutually exclusive confounded Nehru (Vertzberger 165).

This led to a rude awakening and transformation of Sino-Indian relations. India, which viewed good relations with China, as a crucial part of its development, could no longer rely on this. India came to terms that the similarities that it saw with China as another Asian nation that needed to develop in the aftermath of colonial plunder and could not afford to waste money on security, was a view that was clearly not shared across the Himalayas. China deeply rejected the idea of cultural similarity and saw Indian culture as inferior, so perhaps the end of their era of good feelings was inevitable (Vertzberger 162).

A New Strategy

Tibet became the core of mistrust between India and China with the border dispute being the main flashpoint of conflict. India had several times accepted China’s suzerainty over Tibet although that term had annoyed the Chinese who preferred India to use the word “sovereignty.” The fact that India provided refuge for a group of people who claimed to be the true government of Tibet undermined India’s assurances in China’s eyes. China still sees that India could use the Dalai Lama along with their Tibetan diaspora to foment unrest in China and would thereafter cite India as responsible for provoking whatever unrest would develop in Tibet (Jacob). China continued to build roads, settlements, and conduct aerial patrols of Aksai Chin, which India claimed, and it saw infrastructure projects as a way to quell Tibet’s sporadic rebellions. 

A new step that China took to counter India was to throw its weight behind Pakistan. Closer relations between these two countries which shared a mutual enemy even led Pakistan to cede parts of Kashmir (that India claimed) to China in 1963, and as the Sino-Soviet split became evident, China then viewed India’s increasing closeness with the Soviet Union as another threat (Biba). China’s support of Pakistan was purely strategic to keep the subcontinent divided so that it could not pose a great threat to China. China provided covert assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear program, and China remains Pakistan’s number one arms provider, something that India surely does not take lightly (Garver).

The status of Tibet and their exiled government in India may prove to be a flashpoint in Sino-Indian relations in the near future. The 14th Dalai Lama is currently 88 years old at the time of writing, and the politics of his reincarnation are of great interest to the Chinese, Indian, and the exiled Tibetan governments. The Dalai Lama has considered not reincarnating or even appointing someone who would be the next Dalai Lama, but the Chinese government, an avowedly atheist institution, claims to be the sole actor that can appoint the next Dalai Lama. India only recognizes the Dalai Lama as a religious leader, but the political ramifications will be certain to shake up relations between the two countries given the sensitive nature of the Tibetan issue at the core of Sino-Indian relations (Jacob).

A Contest of Aspiring Great Powers:

Rapprochement

Reform and Opening Up in the 1980’s under Deng Xiaoping led to an uneasy rapprochement with India, but continued border skirmishes were a dampener on the relationship. By the 1990’s, high level exchanges between the Indians and the Chinese became routine, and the relationship appeared to be on a better footing. In 1996, a demilitarization of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), seemed to, practically speaking, put the border conflict to rest, even though it was not settled (Jacob).

The border and Tibet conflicts diminished in importance as the two countries aspired for rapid economic growth. In the 1990’s, India under Rahul Gandhi attempted to dismantle what was known as the “License Raj,” a legalistic style of governance that made business and investment in India a painstaking and difficult process. This coincided with China’s continuing economic liberalization and entrance into the WTO. 

China in South Asia

Within the past several decades, Chinese and Indian economic growth has diverged dramatically. The “Chinese Miracle” economy has consistently had double digit growth. While India has had enviably fast growth compared to much of the world, it is nothing that could match the speed of the Chinese economy. This success has been a boon for Chinese nationalism and furthered Chinese views of India as an inferior civilization.

As China became “the world’s factory,” they were able to utilize export-oriented growth like other East Asian nations before them to sell products to the rest of the world and then invest that wealth back into their country. Along with much of the rest of the world, Chinese trade with South Asia exploded. By 2015, China’s trade with the South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was double the amount that India traded with them even with India excluded from the SAARC. China even secured itself as an observer nation as part of SAARC. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India from 2004-2014 has since been seen as a passive actor when it comes to Chinese influence in the region (Yuan). 

But China mastered much more than the production of cheap consumer goods. By the time Xi Jingping took power as the new leader of China, Chinese companies had become skilled at infrastructure development and sought to export the excess capacity for development that resulted from the state’s pumping of investment into the construction and infrastructure industries. Xi unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a way to increase China’s closeness with other nations, increase physical and economic connectivity, and provide new markets around the world for China’s infrastructure capacity. India, along with several other nations, were suspicious of China’s intentions, especially of its business model that gave Chinese SOEs management over their projects if there is a default on payments. This has been labeled “debt-trap-diplomacy,” and there have been accusations of  “dual use” for certain strategic projects that could be converted to military bases. These are common narratives in Western media, especially in the United States, but many of them originated from Indian media including the “String of Pearls” theory that is a variation of the “dual use” theory.

Between 2013 and 2024, there have been a total of 141 construction projects implemented under the BRI in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (Bharti). India has been openly oppositional to the Belt and Road Initiative in India and has dissuaded its neighboring countries from allowing China to finance their infrastructure projects, but the cheap rates and flexibility of Chinese SOEs have made Chinese infrastructure hard to refuse.

The charts below are compiled using data from the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment tracker and shed light on the extent to which China is deeply present economically in South Asia. China has financed $74.4 billion worth of infrastructure from 2013 till the present and has invested an additional $40.9 billion in South Asian countries outside of infrastructure. India has received relatively little infrastructure investment compared to other South Asian nations considering its massive population and GDP because of reticence in joining the BRI and securitization of Chinese investment, ranking only above Nepal and the Maldives in BRI investment, but they rank number one when it comes to other investment. India has largely looked to Japan to fill its infrastructure needs under Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Comparing the rest of South Asia, Bangladesh and Pakistan are the most economically connected with China which makes sense because they are the two largest economies in the region excluding India, and China has long had ties with Pakistan over their shared distrust of India.

Pakistan received the most BRI infrastructure at $38.6 billion and the second most investment behind India at $13.7 billion. Over ten years before the BRI was announced, the Chinese began to build the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, a strategically useful port for Pakistan in addition to its port in Karachi. The project was $1.16 billion and is under the management of a Chinese state run enterprise until 2059. In 2015, China unveiled the Pakistan Economic Corridor that would amount to another $50 billion in investment, the largest announced bundle of investment of the BRI (Naidu). A stark example of how Chinese investment in South Asia can inflame India’s security concerns is the 1,300 km long Karakoram or Friendship Highway which China updated. This highway goes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir and is seen by India as a legitimation of Pakistan’s claim to the territory (Yuan). It is instances like this that fuel the general mistrust between the two countries, and lead to an overall securitization of any form of Chinese investment.

Bangladesh has much better relations with India than Pakistan, but it still holds resentment over India’s “big-brotherly” attitude towards them and is very much open to Chinese investment. China has offered Bangladesh $24 billion of loans, Bangladesh’s largest credit line to date. The Chittagong Pipeline was recently a notable infrastructure project that China financed in Bangladesh, and alarms went up in New Delhi when a consortium of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges outbid the Indian National Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ to buy 25% of the Dhaka stock exchange (Naidu).

Bangladesh has also been the source of some unlikely cooperation between China and India. The two countries have been working together for the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Corridor to increase connection in India’s eastern reaches. They have collaborated on a Kunming-Kolkata highway project as a flagship part of the BCIM Corridor. Bangladesh has also shown some reticence to allow unlimited Chinese financing and construction in their country. Bangladesh canceled a proposal for China to build a port in Sonodia, and instead agreed upon a less favorable deal with India to build a port in Payra (Yuan).

China’s investment in Sri Lanka has attracted much international scrutiny since the government defaulted on its debt, leading many to use this as their prime example for the dangers of China’s “debt-trap-diplomacy.” In 2017, Sri Lanka failed to repay its loans to China Harbour Engineering Company, a Chinese state owned enterprise, for the development of Hambantota International Port. The Chinese SOE took a controlling equity stake in the port and secured a 99 year lease to operate it, raising India’s fears to a height not seen since a Chinese submarine docked at Hambantota which prompted more accusations of a Chinese plot to convert the port into a naval base (Hillman).

Protests erupted in Sri Lanka over accusations of lost sovereignty, and across the Palk Strait, India eyed China’s dealings with great suspicion. But Sri Lanka had been wanting to build this port for years. Since 2002, several European companies had done feasibility studies for a port. Sri Lanka decided to accept China’s more flexible terms that the already incredibly debt-burdened country would soon prove not to be able to handle after agreeing to the $1.4 billion project (Yuan). Part of the downfall of the Hambantota Port was also that the port itself proved to be less profitable than expected with many fewer ships docking in the port than projected, but most nuance on the matter was drowned out by the stoking of anti-Chinese fear (Hillman).

Great Power Strategies

Chinese Strategy: Divide and Surround

China views India as an aspiring great power, but it does not view it as that much of a threat. This threat perception is growing however as India’s capabilities are growing and its posture is changing. China seeks to maximize engagement in South Asia as was outlined in more detail in the previous section, including with India, although India is cautious not to allow too much of China’s economic power and influence to penetrate into the country.

China’s main strategy in South Asia however is to prop up Pakistan as a useful bulwark against Indian hegemony in the region. China believes that with the China-Pakistan axis, they can perpetually divide South Asia so that it does not prove to be a larger threat that China would have to worry about (Garver 28). China also seeks closer relations with Bangladesh for similar reasons, but Bangladesh has much closer ties with India than India does with its sworn enemy, Pakistan. The majority of China’s arms exports go to Bangladesh and Pakistan with 35% of Chinese arms exports going to Pakistan and 20% going to Bangladesh (Yuan). But China wants closer relations with any South Asian nation if it can undermine their relationship with India. The Maldives has surprisingly come into the fore of Sino-Indian rivalry due to the new government’s pro-China attitudes and their push to expel Indian troops from the country’s military bases (Junayd). These more expansive relations with South Asian nations goes to show both how much China has developed as a global power and how India’s growth has been partially responsible for China’s increased attention to the strategic importance of South Asia.

India’s Strategy: Region Making and Alliance Building

Within the Modi era of Indian politics, Indian foreign policy has taken a much more proactive and aggressive stance towards China and a more assertive and confident posture to the world as a whole. When Prime Minister Modi first assumed office in 2014, he announced a “Neighborhood First Policy” that recentered India’s foreign policy on better relations and connectivity with South Asia. In his first term, Modi, along with several high ranking Indian officials, made a point of visiting every country in South Asia. On these visits, Modi often sees an important cultural site that harkens back to India’s millennia of soft power in Asia as an allusion to the Indosphere that this more assertive India wants to recreate (Chaturvedy).

An effective strategy of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) success has been their emphasis on development. India has partnered with other countries to increase these economic and transportation ties. India and Nepal agreed on creating 8 more bus routes on the difficult terrain between their two countries. India has also been a development partner for two of Bangladesh’s new railways and a power link (Chaturvedy).

But a large part of this push for greater connectivity has been unilateral. The BJP under Modi has furthered the elimination of the so-called “License Raj” which began to be slashed in the country’s liberalization of the 1990s. India has eased business restrictions, reduced non-tariff barriers (NTBs), and increased grid and transport connectivity. All of this is to show that India is ready for business, using the openness of their market to try and show that they are not a threat (Chaturvedy).

In the economic competition between the two civilization states, China is clearly the superior, but with a changing geopolitical environment, India pitches its open economy as an alternative to the increasingly hostile and securitized business environment in China. The United States has been leading the charge for the West to engage in “friendshoring,” moving supply chains outside of China and into “friendlier” countries. Modi plans to capitalize on this dissatisfaction with the new “Make in India” initiative to get countries to move production to India and chip away at China as the “factory of the world.” In 2020, the country became a net-exporter of phones (Kiran) and Foxconn even began to start producing and assembling iPhones in the country, amounting to around 13% of total iPhone production in the world. This initiative has had debatable results. There have been gains in certain industries, and India has been moving up the value chain, but manufacturing remains fairly low compared to the countries it is trying to emulate and is even lower than when Modi entered office (Travelli).

On the security side, India is balancing against China and aligning themselves with the United States led international order, as a contrast to its leading role in the non-aligned movement during the first Cold War. India’s ambitions for their role as a great power in a multipolar world have not gone away since independence, so why would they put their weight behind the superpower from the unipolar moment, the United States? The situation has changed: the rise of their neighbor which they’ve had a history of hostility with, China, has changed India’s calculus. This is evident with India’s membership in the QUAD, a quadrilateral security dialogue on issues in the Indo-Pacific along with The United States, Japan, and Australia, largely seen as an anti-China bloc, however it is importantly not an alliance because India still highly values its strategic autonomy (Pardesi).

Conclusion:

In 2020 and the beginning of 2021, Indian and Chinese soldiers came to blows in the Himalayas. Dozens of soldiers died on both sides, and the clash upended what was seen as a stable relationship. The border clash drew the world’s attention to the fact that tense relations between India and China could turn into more than just words; it could turn to violence (CrisisGroup).

For much of time, the two civilizations had been cut off from each other by the Himalayas and had relatively little cultural diffusion, with some important exceptions like China’s conversion to Buddhism. But after their shared experience under European imperialism, their nationalist movements found much to admire in each other. This was until the realities of the differences in their newly independent states brought them into conflict. Ever since the Sino-Indian War, mistrust has defined their relationship. The tension between the two countries mostly revolved around the Tibetan border and India’s hosting of the exiled Tibetan government. 

The conflict has grown since as their respective capabilities and ambitions have grown. The conflict stands currently as a nascent great power competition with Asia as the region of contestation. The competition is asymmetrical in both power and threat perception. China has skyrocketed to become a great power in its own right, an economic giant with a formidable military. India has lagged behind China, and they see this as a sign of a weaker and less serious power. But with India’s increasing confidence and capabilities, they seek to prove China wrong and cement themselves as a great economic and military power in a newly multipolar world.

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