By Annunthra Rangan
US President Donald Trump recently arrived in Beijing for what was billed as a reset summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping—the first visit by an American president to China in nearly a decade. He departed two days later with a warm handshake, a Chinese commitment to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft, and carefully crafted language on Iran. What he did not secure was any meaningful breakthrough on trade, technology restrictions, Taiwan, or the deeper structural disputes that have defined the US-China rivalry for years.
Still, the symbolism mattered. Both governments described the talks as productive. They announced a framework for “strategic stability”—effectively an agreement to compete within limits rather than through uncontrolled escalation. Another summit is already expected later this year. This was not a reconciliation. But it was a recalibration.
For India, that distinction matters enormously. For much of the past decade, India’s growing strategic importance to Washington was tied directly to America’s anxieties about China. The logic was simple: the United States needed a large, democratic, militarily capable Asian partner that could help balance Beijing’s rise. India fit the role almost perfectly. The Quad—the strategic grouping of India, the US, Japan and Australia—became the clearest expression of that alignment.
India’s geopolitical value rose in tandem with US-China tensions. Which means a managed thaw between Washington and Beijing does not merely alter diplomatic atmospherics. It changes the underlying equation.
Ironically, it was Trump’s first presidency that injected real momentum into the Quad. His administration’s openly hawkish China posture made India feel like a central strategic partner. Summits became regular, defence cooperation deepened, and supply-chain diversification emerged as a serious agenda. Now, in Trump’s second term, the Quad barely features in the conversation.
India was expected to host a Quad summit this year, but its future appears uncertain. Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal captured the shift bluntly: “Trump will downplay Quad as part of his outreach to China. The utility of the Quad card is declining with the downturn in US-India relations.”
That assessment exposes a deeper vulnerability. The Quad was always more dependent on Washington’s priorities than New Delhi was willing to admit. The moment America recalibrates its China policy, the grouping’s strategic clarity weakens. India cannot afford to anchor its regional architecture entirely to the impulses of a single American administration.
At the bilateral level, relations with Washington have already become strained. Last year, the Trump administration imposed sweeping tariffs on India—a 25 percent reciprocal levy compounded by another 25 percent penalty linked to India’s continued purchases of Russian oil and defence equipment. India responded cautiously, but firmly, filing a challenge at the WTO while continuing negotiations towards a broader trade agreement.
Yet, the asymmetry is evident. India needs access to American markets more urgently than the current White House needs India. Meanwhile, India’s relationship with China remains economically intertwined despite strategic mistrust. Trade deficits remain heavily tilted in Beijing’s favour, even after the breakdown in relations following the Galwan Valley clashes of 2020. Diplomatic engagement has cautiously resumed, but few in New Delhi believe China’s long-term strategic intentions have fundamentally changed. What often receives less attention is the economic dimension of shifting US-China ties.
One of India’s biggest gains in recent years has been the “China Plus One” strategy adopted by multinational firms seeking alternatives to Chinese manufacturing. India benefited from this diversification push because it offered scale, demographics and political credibility to Western investors wary of dependence on Beijing.
But if US-China trade relations stabilise meaningfully, that momentum could slow. Companies may no longer feel the same urgency to relocate production away from China. One of India’s strongest economic tailwinds of the past decade could weaken considerably.
Security concerns complicate the picture further. China and Pakistan retain one of Asia’s most durable strategic partnerships—one that survived Galwan and is unlikely to weaken because of a summit in Beijing. What has unsettled India more recently is Washington’s own handling of South Asia.
After the devastating terrorist attack in Kashmir last year triggered sharp military tensions between India and Pakistan, the Trump administration remained notably restrained. Trump’s renewed remarks about mediating on Kashmir—historically a non-negotiable red line for New Delhi—alongside revived US trade discussions with Islamabad deepened Indian unease.
A US-China détente does not automatically embolden Pakistan or intensify Chinese pressure on India’s borders. But it does reduce the strategic incentives for Washington to actively support India as a regional counterweight. The geometry of Asian security begins to shift.
Taiwan looms over all of this more than Indian strategic discourse sometimes acknowledges. Any military confrontation over the Taiwan Strait would disrupt global shipping, destabilise Asian markets and force Indo-Pacific powers into positions they may prefer to avoid. India’s longstanding doctrine of strategic ambiguity would face its toughest test yet.
Xi reportedly framed Taiwan during the summit as the single most consequential issue in US-China relations. Taiwan’s leadership, meanwhile, is increasingly anxious that Trump’s confidence in his personal relationship with Xi may eventually translate into reduced American backing for Taipei.
India may not shape those decisions, but it will certainly absorb their consequences. Its existing exposure to instability in the Strait of Hormuz—where tensions linked to the US-Israel-Iran confrontation have already complicated Indian shipping routes—is a reminder that distant geopolitical crises quickly become domestic economic challenges. Taiwan would be no different.
The question now is not whether India should react emotionally to a US-China thaw. It is whether India can build strategic resilience independent of great-power rivalry. That requires concrete choices.
First, New Delhi needs to secure a durable trade agreement with Washington, even if the terms are imperfect. A formal framework offers more protection than reliance on presidential goodwill in an increasingly transactional American political climate.
Second, India must stop treating the Quad as the sole pillar of its Indo-Pacific strategy. Parallel arrangements deserve far greater investment—the I2U2 grouping with Israel, the UAE and the United States; the India-France-Australia trilateral; and deeper bilateral defence cooperation with Japan and Australia that can survive fluctuating American attention.
Third, India’s 2026 BRICS presidency presents a genuine opportunity. Positioning itself as a credible voice for the Global South—not as an anti-Western disruptor, but as a serious architect of more inclusive global institutions—gives India leverage that exists independently of US-China tensions.
Above all, however, India’s long-term influence still rests on economics. Its leverage in every diplomatic room ultimately depends on sustained growth, industrial expansion and market relevance. No foreign policy can substitute for genuine economic weight.
Beneath the strategic calculations lies a more uncomfortable question this Beijing summit has forced into the open: has India become too comfortable benefiting from great-power rivalry?
The deepening relationship with Washington accelerated because America needed India against China. The Quad gained urgency because America feared China’s rise. India’s manufacturing pitch strengthened because companies wanted alternatives to China. Much of India’s strategic momentum over the past decade was shaped by circumstances it neither created nor controlled.
That is not a failure of statecraft. Nations are expected to benefit from favourable geopolitical conditions. The danger lies in assuming those conditions are permanent. Great powers recalibrate. Rivals reconcile when interests demand it.
India’s true strengths—geography, democracy, demographics and economic potential—remain independent of any US-China confrontation. But leveraging those strengths requires a more self-assured foreign policy, one built on deliberate strategic choices rather than the fortunate by-product of superpower competition.
The Beijing summit did not rewrite the global order. But it clarified something important: India may no longer be able to rely on the rivalry between Washington and Beijing to do its geopolitical work.
—The writer is a Senior Research Officer at Chennai Centre for China Studies. Her research interests constitute China-WANA (West Asia and North Africa) relations and human rights
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