Modi’s Tilt Toward Xi Shows Limits of India’s Leverage in the Face of US Pressure

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Summit (SCO) summit and his meeting with President Xi Jinping comes at a hiatus in the Modi-Trump relationship, even if recent reports that he has been ducking the US president’s phone calls are likely untrue.

With Modi in Tokyo and Tianjin, and getting ready on his return to welcome Putin in New Delhi, geopolitics seems to be taking several somersaults. Given the way in which the US has turned its India policy upside down, it is inevitable that India’s foreign policy developments with China are being linked with its estrangement from the US. But we must be cautious not to read too much into these contemporary developments.

The US has always been a player in the Sino-Indian relationship. The Chinese action in eastern Ladakh in 2020 was perhaps motivated by a desire to check India’s growing military closeness to the US. But what is happening today between India and China and India and the US form two distinct trajectories that need to be viewed separately.

The current Sino-Indian rapprochement has its own logic and goes back to a time before the arrival of the Trump administration. As for our troubles with the US, they are, in a sense, entirely Trump’s creation.

Recently, Bloomberg published a story claiming that Xi had written a secret letter to India earlier this year that had helped revive ties between the two countries. This was a strange claim and the reporter’s own scepticism was evident since they did not take a byline. The letter in question was not a secret and was widely reported on at the time: it was a routine message on the 75th anniversary of India-China ties sent by the Chinese President to his counterpart in India, President Droupadi Murmu, on April 1, 2025.

It is true that the message was warmer than usual and spoke of the relationship as a “cooperative pas de deux of the dragon and the elephant” that could serve the fundamental interests of both the peoples. Xi had called for the two countries to view and handle their ties from a “strategic and long term perspective”. But a significant element that formed the core of the Bloomberg story is that Xi’s letter expressed concern about any US deals that would harm China’s interests and that the message had been conveyed to Prime Minister Modi.

In her response to Xi, President Murmu had said that “stable, predictable and amicable” bilateral relations will bring significant benefits to both countries. There was more than a hint there that the Chinese should not repeat their 2020 “experiment” in eastern Ladakh in the interests of Sino-Indian relations.

The Bloomberg item claimed that it was not until June that the Indian government began to make serious efforts to improve ties with China. This is patently incorrect. The first signal from India came in April 2024 when, in an interview to Newsweek, Prime Minister Modi termed ties between India and China as “important and significant”. He expressed his belief that there was need “to urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us.” He said that he hoped and believed that “through positive and constructive bilateral engagement at the diplomatic and military levels, we will be able to restore and sustain peace and tranquility in our borders.”

Another important signal came on July 22, 2024, when the pre-budget Economic Survey of the Ministry of Finance called for a relook at restrictions on economic relations with China and added speculation on a shift in India’s approach. The survey made a case for attracting Chinese FDI with a view of improving Indian participation in global supply chains. Though the government was quick to deny that there was any shift underway in India’s policies towards China, the survey triggered a debate in the country.

Simultaneously, there had been discussions at the level of the National Security Advisor and the external affairs minister, which led to a resolution of sorts of the border standoff at their last two locations in eastern Ladakh. These formed a prelude to the meeting on October 23, 2024 between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan at the sidelines of the 16th BRICS annual summit. This was their first official bilateral meeting since 2019.

This, in turn, led to the first meeting of the Special Representatives dealing with the border issues – NSA Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi since 2019. This meeting, the 23rd round took place in Beijing on December 18. A press release said that the two sides reiterated the importance of a border settlement, “and resolved to inject more vitality into the process. Further, it said that “drawing on the learnings from the events of 2020,” they discussed ways of maintaining peace and tranquillity and to “advance effective border management.”

Confirmation that things were on a recovery track came on March 17 this year when in a wide-ranging podcast with Lex Fridman , Prime Minister Modi said that while differences were natural between neighbours, it was important that these did not escalate into disputes, adding “dialogue is the key to building a stable and cooperative relationship that benefits both countries.” Modi referred to his meeting with President Xi in Kazan and highlighted efforts to restore conditions to pre-2020 levels.

It has been clear from the beginning of 2025 that Modi intended to attend the summit of the SCO in Tianjin this year. As part of the preparations, Doval visited Beijing in June 2025 to attend the meeting of the SCO Security Council. He was followed by external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in mid-July. Finally, earlier in August, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was in Delhi to meet his counterparts Jaishankar and Doval.

It was during the Wang visit that the two sides set up the agenda of the future. Among these is the need to push for a final boundary settlement and set up a new border management group under the WMCC to maintain peace and tranquillity on the LAC. In addition, higher military commander level talks will now be extended to the middle and eastern sectors as well. Besides, India and China agreed to resume direct flights and continue and even expand the Manasarovar pilgrimage. They have also agreed to enhance the issuance of visas for businesses and tourists.

Modi’s comments to Xi during the meeting in Tianjin on August 31 were fairly standard. He underscored the importance of peace and tranquillity on the border areas for good Sino-Indian relations. Good relations, he added, could only be on the basis of the “three mutuals” – mutual respect, mutual trust and mutual sensitivity. The two leaders jointly hailed the disengagement in eastern Ladakh, and expressed commitment “to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question” as per the existing processes.

India’s dealings with China have had their own trajectory and are based on dynamics in which the US does play a role, but not as significant as is being made out. But the Trump administration’s pressure on Modi and India has probably accelerated the improvement in India-China ties.

Now the law of unintended consequences seems to have come into play. There is a report that Trump is likely to skip the Quad summit scheduled to be held in India later this year. So what we see is that US pressure on India has probably weakened India’s position vis-à-vis China, while a more constructive US policy could have added strength to it.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.

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