India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar has talked about “an unsettled world... one with a lot of turbulence and volatility”. The Communist Party of China general secretary and Chinese President Xi Jinping has similarly stated that the world was undergoing “great changes unseen in a century”. In a world with such uncertainties then what are the prospects for India-China relations?

It would appear that at least part of the recent thaw in the India-China relationship has been driven by common concerns with the second Donald Trump administration in the US. These might not be enough, however, to keep the two countries together for long.

Trump’s maximalist moves must eventually meet friction, and China is much better prepared today than it was during the first Trump administration to deal with the consequences. When that happens — and just as possible, even if it does not — at least two structural problems in the India-China relationship will resurface as a source of tensions — the boundary dispute and the role of the US.

One effect of China’s economic and geopolitical rise and India’s inability to keep pace has been the decreasing likelihood of a resolution of the boundary dispute between the two countries. India’s constraints are all too visible — a military slow to reform, limited diplomatic capacity and economic resources for foreign aid and assistance, unpopularity in its own neighbourhood, a risk-averse domestic industry, and a political class unwilling to bite the bullet on external trade........

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