Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first visit to India in seven years and his bilateral with Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is understandably going to dwarf everything else at the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi.

At a time when US President Donald Trump has upended every norm of global diplomacy, I can understand why there’s a need for us to stabilise relations with Beijing. I can even see the value — limited though it may be in the long-run — of optics and visual messaging when it comes to someone as volatile as Trump.

We saw the effect of this last year, when PM Modi’s decision to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin and be pictured with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin suddenly catapulted India’s fraught relations with the US into western media’s headlines.

But I would not hold my breath in anticipation of any real breakthrough between India and China. In fact, like most Indians, I would be deeply wary of China, its intentions and its long game.

Also Read | Xi’s first visit in 7 years: India and China look to consolidate peace along LAC

First of all, with China, nothing is ever as it seems. I have just returned from Nepal where I travelled across the country to report on the devastating flash floods; I drove through mountains and over rocks, through rain — roads in the area have been wiped away — to reach the closest possible point near the Nepal-China border.

The contrast in how Nepal and China responded to the calamity is staggering. Nepal has been absolutely transparent, releasing not just names........

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