The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

How India’s Geopolitical Position Would Improve With Better China Ties

The United States’ declining interest in India need not be a great setback, as it could open up space for Delhi to resolve most of its core geopolitical issues.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping shake hands at a meeting on the sidelines of the BRIC summit in New Delhi, India, Sep. 12,2026.

At the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the recent BRICS summit in New Delhi, Modi is said to have assured Xi that India’s foreign policy was independent of influence by any third party, a statement taken to imply the United States.

While India and China have a long way to go before their relations normalize, the bilateral relationship, which had derailed following the 2020 Galwan clashes, has improved. And especially with the U.S. under Trump increasingly treating India less as a partner, New Delhi is looking to build relations with other powers, including China. By improving ties, India and China would both accentuate their geopolitical positions.

In the past year, the U.S. war in Iran, continuing Iranian and Ukrainian resilience against foreign attacks, the growing rifts between the U.S. and many of its allies or partners — including Canada, the European Union, and India — Russia’s persistence and adaptation in prosecuting the war in Ukraine despite heavy losses, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) all lead to one conclusion: the multipolar world has arrived faster than anticipated, and is in fact already here. Each country and each polity should be prepared to be flexible and seek out what is in its best interests.

A new geopolitical order is already emerging in Asia. Although no contemporary Congress of Vienna has established a definitive list of new great powers, four countries — China, Russia, India, and Iran — are actively shaping the evolving geopolitical order in Asia. Despite their differences, they are members of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS and persistently exercise power across the oceans surrounding Asia and overland across Eurasia. Now, as was the case over a millennium ago, Sinic, Indic, Inner Asian, and Persian polities are pillars of an Asian geopolitical order.

In this multipolar world, India’s policy of pursuing strategic autonomy suddenly looks more reasonable, since it is becoming increasingly conceivable that a post-Trump America would be similarly disinterested in balancing against China, supporting India, or pivoting back to Asia. The U.S. government has shown less interest in the security of allies, such as South Korea and Taiwan. Surveys have shown that this is the spirit of the future, as younger Americans are less concerned about foreign policy in general, and China specifically, with less than half of Millennials and Gen Z viewing China’s rise as a world power as a threat. On the other hand, negative perceptions of India have increased in the United States.

It makes sense for India to continue to improve and build on its ties with the United States and its allies, especially those in West Asia, as this facilitates investment, education, and technological transfer. At the same time, détente and even closer relations with China and other Eurasian powers are also in India’s interest.

If the United States does not perceive China as a threat requiring balancing against, then there is significantly less reason for India to prioritize close ties with the U.S. or participate in groupings like Quad. India would be less assured of U.S. help in the event of a conflict along its border with China. As evidence of changing U.S. priorities, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) has reverted........

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