Cover Story | A Handshake In Delhi, A Fistfight In Arunachal: It's Time India Called China's Bluff

In September, India’s capital city offered a picture of a rare and remarkable bonhomie. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged pleasantries, projecting an unmistakable warmth. With Russian President Vladimir Putin joining the duo, it seemed, to some observers, like a geopolitical fantasy taking shape. Perhaps, the three leaders could come together to offer a counterweight to American hegemony?

But dreams have a way of colliding with ground realities. And a month later came the rude awakening.

On October 22, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) director general Shatrujeet Singh Kapur revealed that face-offs with Chinese troops had occurred at several places along the Arunachal Pradesh frontier and are continuing. In September, Xi and Modi held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, agreeing that their countries should view each other as partners rather than rivals and that differences should not turn into disputes. The diplomatic thaw progressed during the summit. However, the border never got the memo about the rapprochement. Chinese troops reportedly pitched tents 6­­–7 km inside the line of actual control (LAC). A camera grab shows Indian and Chinese soldiers sitting face to face.

Such betrayals have been happening for over a decade. While the 2013 Depsang confrontation preceded Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India, the Chumar-Demchok stand-off coincided with Xi’s 2014 visit. Be it the 2017 Doklam crisis and the 2020 Galwan face-off, which killed 20 Indian soldiers, China has been adventuring into the Indian side for far too long.

What happened in Arunachal isn’t new. Why it keeps happening is the larger question.

Every few years, the remote Himalayan ridge becomes a national headline. The script rarely changes—troops tiff, officials explain, talks follow and attention moves on. A border issue both governments say they want settled remains unsettled. From Manmohan Singh to Modi, little has changed. Each time, the government has to huddle and act until the crisis temporarily fizzles out. Each crisis gives ammunition to the opposition camp of the day to attack the government and question its foreign policy.

China’s frequent military stand-offs have had a significant impact on India’s policymaking, pushing New Delhi to rethink its national-security priorities, economic strategy, diplomacy and infrastructure development. It is no longer viewed merely as a neighbour with whom India has an unresolved boundary dispute, but as a long-term strategic challenge that influences decisions across several areas of governance.

In a classic grey-zone fashion, Beijing is using these encounters to test India’s preparedness and gauge New Delhi’s response without a conventional war. China’s strategy is simple: advance strategic goals below the threshold of open conflict.

Meanwhile, the dilemma faced by India is profound: how to resist attempts to change the status quo without letting a local clash become a wider crisis? Hypothetically, if the crisis widens, the maths is unkind—China’s declared defence budget is about $277 billion against India’s $86 billion. Its economy is four to five times larger and its roads and airfields on the Tibet Plateau let the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) move troops in days rather than weeks.

From securing geographically or militarily advantageous positions, asserting territorial claims, testing India’s military and political responses or strengthening Beijing’s negotiating position, China’s incursions may have different objectives, says B. Bala Bhaskar, former diplomat who also served in China (see page 34).

Since India is operating in a grey zone, it will have to develop an effective strategy to counter China.

Changing Warfare

Drones and artificial intelligence have become the new weapons of choice, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an address to the UK parliament in March. Ukraine has rewritten the economics of warfare. It has shown how a relatively small country, unable to match Russia tank for tank or aircraft for aircraft, can use inexpensive drones, technological innovation and asymmetric warfare to impose enormous costs on a much larger military power.

India’s military competition with China is increasingly moving beyond tanks, fighter jets and missiles. From surveillance drones patrolling difficult terrains to autonomous systems capable of precision strikes, India is attempting to build a new technological shield along its northern borders.

The ITBP chief, while apprising of China’s growing threat along the Arunachal border, called for wider use of drones and counter-drone systems and emphasised indigenous drone production. Persistent unmanned surveillance high in the Himalayas could help spot unusual troop movements, monitor approaches and give commanders a clearer picture of remote areas.

China too has invested in drones, electronic warfare and integrated surveillance. So how can India have an edge over China, especially when Beijing’s military expenditure is nearly four times that of India?

For New Delhi, the challenge is not merely to increase defence spending but to improve military technology, indigenous manufacturing and combat preparedness. India need not match China’s spending in all areas; it should find areas where innovation can deliver a real operational edge.

China has demonstrated the strategic advantage of industrial scale. India’s opportunity lies in developing a complementary model built upon specialised engineering, institutional responsiveness, domestic supply-chain depth and the capacity to improve technologies continuously, says Nikunj Parashar, founder of Sagar Defence Engineering, a defence-tech company (see page 28).

The future soldier may not necessarily be the person carrying a rifle and entering enemy territory. Increasingly, it could be someone operating a network of machines from a command centre. But there is another side to the debate. Technology may reduce the number of soldiers exposed to enemy fire, but it may not reduce the need for military manpower. Drones may be the future of warfare, but boots on the ground remain the currency of territorial control.

Take Yangtse, for instance. A strategically critical, high-altitude border area located about 25–35 km northeast of Tawang town in Arunachal Pradesh, it sits along the LAC and is one of the eight mutually agreed disputed points between the Indian Army and the PLA. On December 9, 2022, a large PLA patrol tried to alter the status quo and it was Indian soldiers, already on the ground, who turned it back. No drone strike or budget line did that job; the men were simply there.

Face-offs are not decided by drones or budgets, but by who is standing at the patrolling point when the other side arrives. In Ladakh, Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh, over 1,000 km of the LAC runs through jungle, ridge, cloud and high-altitude mountains. Along with drones and other modern technologies, India also needs a large number of soldiers who know the ground under their feet.

India, some experts say, has made a mistake by fundamentally changing the “boots on the ground” dynamic of the Indian armed forces.

The Agniveer Challenge

In 2020, a year that saw the first deadly border confrontation between India and China in over four decades, the Army had a shortage of 64,482 personnel. By January 2022, the shortage had increased to approximately 1.16 lakh due to the hiring freeze during the pandemic. In June that year, the government launched the Agnipath scheme. Latest numbers show there is a shortfall of 1.8 lakh Army personnel in India. Incidentally, the country has engaged in significant border escalations, cross-border operations and local friction points with both China and Pakistan since 2022. Do we need to reassess the policy?

The Agnipath scheme, under which young men and women are recruited as Agniveers for four years in the Army, Navy and Air Force, fundamentally changed the recruitment system for India’s armed forces: at the end of four years, only up to 25 per cent of each batch may be selected for regular service, while the remaining 75 per cent leave the forces.

Does it make the armed forces younger and more agile? Or is it a strategic disadvantage, considering Agniveers receive only six months of training before serving 42 months, which is too short a time to master sophisticated equipment and advanced warfare systems, particularly in the tech-intensive Navy and Air Force. Besides, the Army relies heavily on a regimental system built on long-standing traditions, intense unit pride and deep personal bonds among soldiers. A transient workforce on short-term contracts lacks the institutional dedication and long-term trust essential for high-stakes combat operations.

Comparing capability is not about counting tanks; it is about who can do what, where and for how long, says Major General Sudhakar Jee (retd.), who commanded troops along the northern border with China. “A soldier raised in the hills and seasoned by Siachen and Ladakh acclimatises faster, moves lighter and tires slower than a conscript brought up in the plains. Galwan in June 2020 showed what that difference is worth,” he adds, and believes the 25 per cent retention ceiling deserves a rethinking (see page 24).

The services themselves have asked for more, with reports in July saying the Navy wants about 75 per cent retained and the Army and the Air Force about 50 per cent. No decision has been announced yet.

Jee closes his argument by saying that China will always have more money; India can have more patience, more mountain craft and a soldier who stays long enough to master it. “This old soldier has no illusions about how unequal this frontier is, but inequality is a fact to be managed, not a fate to be accepted,” he says.

The conflict with China has no end date. China appears to prefer keeping the situation unresolved rather than working towards a settlement, says Suresh K Goel, a former diplomat who served in Beijing and looked after the China desk at the external affairs ministry. “It wants to keep the issue alive and use it as a source of military pressure on India, potentially to secure strategic advantages at a later date,” he adds.

Some conflicts are fought at the border, some through diplomacy. Subsequent governments have tried to fix the Chinese problem. Some came close to resolving the conflict, some strategies ended in a stalemate. No decade was uneventful.

Border Management

Two decades of mistrust between two neighbouring countries is bad news in geopolitics.

The 1962 war left a lasting scar on India’s foreign policy. Although diplomatic relations were never completely severed, meaningful political engagement remained frozen for much of the 1960s and 1970s. The ’80s was a significant decade: the two countries built real frameworks for a settlement. Eight rounds of formal boundary talks were held between 1981 and November 1987. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s December 1988 visit to China led to a joint working group.

However, it was the 1993 deal that is considered to be a turning point. When Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao visited China in 1993 and signed the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement—the first major bilateral agreement between the two countries aimed at maintaining peace along the LAC—it marked a significant thaw in India-China relations. The deal created a framework to prevent border tensions from escalating into armed conflict. Reactions on both sides were positive and pragmatic. There, however, was a significant drawback: the two countries did not have a mutually agreed, clearly demarcated LAC. Talks, nevertheless, continued.

While a 1996 agreement added military confidence-building measures to reduce the risk of armed confrontation, during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 2003 China visit, the two sides appointed special representatives to explore a political framework.

The change in government in India in 2004 gave a new direction to the talks. During Wen Jiabao’s India visit in 2005, Manmohan Singh and the Chinese premier agreed to protect settled populations in border areas, a sign that talks had moved beyond managing incidents towards principles for a final settlement.

However, in the past decade, the two countries have witnessed a seesaw relationship. The two have attempted to get closer but have only grown distant.

During Singh’s decade-long tenure, India attempted to separate economic cooperation from the unresolved strategic and territorial disputes with China. It sought to build commercial interdependence, maintain peace along the border and use diplomatic engagement to manage differences. But the decade also exposed the limitations of this approach: trade grew, leaders met frequently and agreements were signed, yet the boundary dispute remained unresolved and strategic mistrust persisted.

India-China relations under Modi have been marked by a mixture of economic engagement, military confrontation, diplomatic negotiations and strategic competition. The relationship has gone through three broad phases: initial attempts at rapprochement, a serious deterioration following the 2020 Galwan clash and a cautious effort to restore normal diplomatic and economic engagement since 2024. Under Modi, India has combined selective high-level engagement with accelerated border infrastructure, tighter scrutiny of Chinese investments and technology and deeper partnerships in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, reflecting a clearer prioritisation of capability and strategic autonomy after the 2020 Galwan clash, feels Sriparna Pathak, a professor of China studies at O.P. Jindal Global University.

Dialogue lowers tensions and makes room for more talks. But managing the LAC is not the same as agreeing where the boundary stands. The continuing Arunachal face-offs show the danger of letting crisis management replace a settlement. There’s no single reason the boundary remains unsettled. History, geography, national identity and military balance all play a part, but an open dispute also hands Beijing immediate advantages.

Arunachal Pradesh borders Tibet, where China holds firm political and military control. Its passes and approaches to the plateau shape both sides’ security calculations. China claims Arunachal Pradesh, calling it Zangnan or South Tibet. India regards the state as an integral part of the country and treats the McMahon Line, born of the 1914 Simla Convention, as the basis of the eastern boundary. Beijing rejects it.

For India, accepting China’s claim means surrendering territory with settled populations, elected institutions and deep ties to the Union. For Beijing, accepting India’s position means abandoning a longstanding claim. Neither side has shown willingness to concede.

More importantly, ambiguity along the LAC is itself a pressure tool. With no agreed alignment, patrols run into each other in areas both sides claim, forcing India to keep troops deployed, strengthen logistics, build infrastructure and divert diplomatic attention.

China’s infrastructure helps too. Roads, railways, airfields and logistics hubs in Tibet have improved its ability to mobilise and sustain forces. If Beijing believes that gives it an edge, it may see little urgency in a settlement that could limit its freedom of action.

None of this means every Chinese patrol is part of a centrally directed plan to seize territory, or that Beijing has formally abandoned negotiations. But an unresolved boundary serves its interests even as talks continue and gives it leverage: China can cooperate with New Delhi on trade and multilateral issues while keeping pressure on the frontier. For India, the catch is that routine diplomacy suggests improving ties without touching the core disagreement. Dialogue is essential, but it can’t replace deterrence.

India’s relationship with China is a study in contradictions. The two Asian neighbours don’t get along yet their economies are closely intertwined. China is among India’s largest trading partners and Indian industries depend heavily on Chinese imports. In many ways, the two countries are caught between geopolitical rivalry and economic necessity. They may distrust each other at the border, but they cannot easily disengage from each other in the marketplace.

The scale of this interdependence is striking: bilateral trade stands at $151.1 billion. While Indian imports from China are worth $131.63 billion, Indian exports to China are at $19.47 billion.

The Economic Imbalance

China is no longer merely a trading partner for India; it has become an integral part of its manufacturing ecosystem. From the medicines Indians consume to the smartphones they use, from automobiles and electric-vehicle compo­nents to solar panels and industrial machinery, Chinese inputs are embedded in India’s production chains. This creates an economic paradox: India wants to reduce its dependence on China for strategic reasons, but its own manufacturing ambitions continue to depend on Chinese components, technology and raw materials. Decoup­ling, therefore, is not simply a political decision. It is a complex industrial challenge that could take years to address. The challenge for New Delhi is not simply to reduce the trade deficit, but to dismantle the structural dependence that makes China indispensable to Indian manufacturing.

Following the Galwan clash, India introduced a series of economic, technological and investment restrictions against China. The measures were intended to reduce India’s economic dependence on China, restrict Chinese access to sensitive Indian sectors and signal economic consequences for the border confrontation. But the trade numbers tell a different story. Five years after the border confrontation, India’s trade deficit with China has more than doubled from $44 billion in 2020–21 to over $112 billion in 2025–26. The goal to reduce economic dependence has not materialised as India’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing continues to grow.

India has taken a slew of measures but they are not enough. Make in India was conceived as an economic transformation project, but it also carried a larger strategic ambition: to reduce India’s dependence on China, challenge its manufacturing dominance and establish India as an alternative destination in global supply chains.

However, Atmanirbhar Bharat cannot be measured simply by how many products carry a Made in India label. Its real success will depend on how much of the technology, components, intellectual property and manufacturing value chain India controls domestically. India cannot counter China’s manufacturing dominance merely by assembling Chinese components on Indian soil.

India should not make the mistake of believing that reducing trade with China automatically makes it economically stronger. It must first build the manufacturing capacity, technological expertise and industrial competitiveness that make dependence unnecessary. The real objective should be to transform India from a country that imports Chinese industrial strength into one that competes with China on manufacturing, technology, innovation and exports. “Building domestic manufacturing capacity in critical sectors would lower strategic dependence on Chinese supply chains, enhance economic resilience and give India bargaining power in an asymmetric relationship,” says Pathak of O.P. Jindal Global University.

Be Bold And Fearless

China’s military modernisation, infrastructure and industrial capacity gives it real advantages that India shouldn’t underestimate. Frontier balance, however, is not set by aggregate spending alone; geography, training, intelligence, logistics and the ability to impose costs count too.

India has significantly stepped up its defence investments over the past decade to strengthen its military capabilities and counter China’s growing presence along the LAC. The strategy has focused on three broad areas: modernising the armed forces, strengthening border infrastructure and expanding indigenous defence manufacturing. India is investing in advanced fighter aircraft, missiles, artillery, surveillance systems, drones and air-defence capabilities.

Technology, however, can’t establish or hold territory by itself. Soldiers, infrastructure, logistics and credible command arrangements remain indispensable. The ITBP chief’s emphasis on drones is about adapting border management to modern warfare, not abandoning traditional responsibilities. India has also accelerated the construction of roads, tunnels, bridges and strategically important airfields along the China border, particularly in Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

The latest stand-off is a reminder that the dispute won’t vanish because leaders meet, agreements are signed or trade grows. India must prepare for recurring face-offs without sliding into political outrage followed by business as usual. It needs resilient deterrence built on capable personnel, reliable infrastructure, selective technological advantages and an indigenous defence industry responsive to military requirements.

Goel, the former diplomat, too, argues for talks backed by vigilance. India must keep pressing for a boundary settlement while both sides avoid close-quarter confrontations along the border. “There is no alternative to maintaining a high state of preparedness and ensuring that China cannot exploit the unresolved boundary to its advantage,” he adds.

A posture that prioritises capability and clears red lines on sovereignty serves India’s long-term interests than one that hesitates in the hope of reciprocity that has seldom materialised, says Pathak.

India can no longer afford to be defensive, hesitant or overly cautious in dealing with China. It needs to be bold, assertive and strategically fearless in protecting its national interests. Beijing understands the language of power, not diplomatic niceties alone.

India must be willing to impose economic and diplomatic costs whenever China violates its territorial integrity or undermines its interests. But being tough on China does not mean being reckless or rushing into conflict. It means building the economic muscle, military strength and political resolve to ensure that India is never bullied, never cornered and never forced to negotiate from a position of weakness. India must engage China when it serves Indian interests, confront it when necessary and never mistake restraint for weakness.

Anish Kumar is strategic affairs editor, Outlook