“Mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of our relations”. That’s what Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India reminded his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping when the two leaders met in Kazan, Russia, for their first formal meeting in five years on the sidelines of the 16th BRICS summit, while the latter pointed out that the two sides should “strengthen communication and cooperation, enhance strategic mutual trust, and facilitate each other’s pursuit of development aspirations”. However, how will things pan out when one country finds itself on the favourable side of a serious asymmetrical power equation?
The Kazan rendezvous came two days after the armies of both countries reached an agreement on restoring border patrols along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh to the limits as it existed before May 2020, thereby bringing an end to a standoff that went on to cast a long shadow over the overall bilateral ties. This entails a pullback of soldiers and dismantling temporary infrastructure built in contested areas. The soldiers on both sides exchanged sweets at several points along the LAC on the occasion of Diwali, as they completed disengagement at the last two remaining friction points – Depsang and Demchok.
Meanwhile, the Indian industry is elated with the border thaw, considering the much-needed assistance from Chinese technicians, to which the government has responded positively. Earlier, the now-resolved standoff had forced India to impose certain measures to limit Chinese influence on the Indian economy, including measures to ban a slew of Chinese apps, restrict Chinese investment, diversify supply chains, and boost domestic manufacturing, where a significant skill gap exists. But how far can India ease them? Will direct flights between the two countries resume any time soon? Well, all of it squarely depends on how the remaining strategic insecurities between the two countries are ‘minimised’, if not resolved.
Recall that more than a decade before, in September 2014, even as Modi and Xi met in India, one must not forget that the Chinese troops continued to intrude into Indian territory at Demchok and Chumar in Ladakh. The two leaders met 18 times in various formats in the years that followed, including in informal summits, until the 2020 standoff began. Then the Galwan incident occurred in June 2020, which dispelled several illusions and pointed fingers at the looming strategic mistrust between the two Asian giants. So now, the bigger question is, can we take the current thaw for granted?
Despite recognising India as a partner in the Global South, China never sees India as an ‘equal power’ and continues to undermine its strategic interests on multiple fronts – from the maritime to the multilateral. New Delhi views the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) sustained military modernisation and steady rise in defence spending with suspicion. Today, the defence budget of China, a UNSC permanent member, is three times India’s and its economy is five times as large as India’s. In addition to this, China now reportedly possesses the world’s largest maritime fighting force, operating 234 warships to the U.S. Navy’s 219, a recent IISS publication titled The Military Balance notes. India, a ‘middle power’ poised steadily on the course of becoming a superpower, confronts the aforementioned realities while dealing with a country like China.
The maritime realm remains tense
The “land” aspect of security appears to move on a stable course now with both sides expressing willingness to bury the hatchet. But what are the current dynamics of maritime security vis-a-vis the perception of each other? What about trade imbalances and structural power gaps? Has the regional rivalry in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region subsided? What will be the future of Aksai Chin, occupied by China after the 1962 war? Well, China continues to supply arms to countries in India’s neighbourhood, accounting for 82 percent of Pakistan’s and 72 percent of Bangladesh’s arms imports. Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region further adds to this strategic insecurity.
Just a month before the new Ambassador of China to India Xu Feihong took charge in May, following an unusually long delay of 18 months, the Pakistani naval chief was in Wuhan, China, to witness the launch of the first of 8 Hangor-class submarines in what was the largest ever defence contract signed by the Pakistani Navy so far. In the same month, Pakistan and China completed the first phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, connecting Gwadar in Pakistan with Kashgar in Xinjiang, which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Similarly, China has also undertaken infrastructure development in the Indian Ocean littoral countries such as Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Myanmar. Moreover, China is reportedly building surveillance facilities at the Coco Islands, about 55 km from India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Chinese research vessel with “snooping” allegations Xiang Yang Hong 03 docked at Maldivian waters thrice in 2024. Two other ships – Zhong Shan Da Xue and Yang Wang 7 – were also reportedly present in the Indian Ocean this year.
In the preceding years, these Chinese “research” vessels Shi Yan-6 and Yuan Wang-5 made calls at Sri Lankan ports in 2023 and 2022 respectively. Persistent Indian pressure forced the island state to declare a year-long moratorium on foreign research ships entering its waters in 2024. Experts warn that these ships were engaged in gathering confidential information for the PLA, pretending to be for “scientific purposes” and could potentially monitor India’s defence and space research-related activities at sea. The fact that many of these vessels were spotted just ahead of India’s planned missile tests can never be viewed as a coincidence.
China’s so-called strategy of “String of Pearls” seeks to build a series of maritime footholds across the Indian Ocean region, such as in Hambantota (Sri Lanka), Gwadar (Pakistan), and Djibouti (where China’s first overseas military base is located) to augment its strategic reach and secure energy routes. Keeping China in mind, in March 2024, India commissioned a strategically important naval base in the Lakshadweep islands, named INS Jatayu, about 125 km from the Maldives, keeping China in mind. Despite this tense geostrategic scenario, China managed to overtake the United States as India’s largest trading partner in the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, with Chinese imports rising exponentially and India’s trade deficit staggering at $85 billion, while China continues to place impediments on market access for Indian imports.
India’s countermeasures
India has been compelled to take measures to balance the threat posed by China’s dubious engagement in its maritime neighbourhood. Earlier this year, the Quad foreign ministers decided to expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) to the Indian Ocean region and Prime Minister Modi attended the Quad summit at Wilmington, U.S., in September, where the four leaders launched the ‘Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific’ (MAITRI) and launch the first-ever ‘Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission’ in 2025, to improve interoperability and maritime safety, with again China in mind.
The Quad joint statement read “We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated – one where all countries are free from coercion, and can exercise their agency to determine their futures …”, in a clear indication of the Chinese PLA Navy’s belligerent posturing across the Indo-Pacific. 2024 also witnessed India doubling down its presence in the South China Sea, China’s backyard, giving Beijing a taste of its own medicine. In May, Indian naval ships called at multiple Southeast Asian ports – Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei – and initiated the delivery of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines, a U.S.-ally with disputes with China.
Earlier in October, the Government of India approved a long-pending project to build two nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) on a priority basis over a third aircraft carrier as China’s long-range missiles continue to be a looming threat. This came two months after India commissioned its second nuclear-tipped ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) INS Arighat. In a further move that would bolster New Delhi’s nuclear deterrence, a fourth SSBN codenamed S4* was also launched in October. Meanwhile, India’s sixth conventional Scorpene-class submarine, INS Vagsheer, is expected to be launched by the end of this year.
India also hosted Exercise Malabar in the Bay of Bengal with all four Quad navies participating for the fifth consecutive year, while China’s PLA Navy demonstrated its growing naval capacities in the South China Sea with its first-ever dual-carrier formation, featuring both Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers. China also happens to be the only P5 country that doesn’t support India’s bid for UNSC permanent membership. So, despite the rapprochement at the LAC, it is no surprise that China continues to be a key driver of New Delhi’s recent push for defence modernisation and arms procurement plans.
Indeed, the new understanding reached at the LAC can potentially keep a check on preventing unintentional flare-ups in the future, but India cannot afford to lower its guard in the maritime realm, as recent incidents show. The real challenge is to sustain the goodwill earned from the border rapprochement to minimise strategic mistrust, and the only sustainable way ahead for India is to keep striving to attain parity with China through domestic capacity-building and diversifying global partnerships in a way that conclusively bridges the imbalance in their comprehensive national power.