Is Trump forcing a marriage of convenience between India and China? Like most relationships, it's complicated

CNN

5 days ago

Their relationship is defined by a bloody border dispute, a vast power imbalance and a fierce contest for influence across Asia. Yet, President Donald Trump's latest trade war may be achieving the unthinkable: pushing India and China into a wary but tactical embrace.
Trump's announcement of a new base tariff rate of 25% in India – later set to rise to a staggering 50% as additional punishment for purchasing Russian oil – in some ways mirrors the long pressure campaign he's waged against China and creates a shared interest between New Delhi and Beijing.
While a thaw in India and China's fractious relationship was already underway, analysts say Trump's actions have added to this shift.
New Delhi and Beijing now find themselves navigating a volatile and unpredictable Washington that treats strategic partners and geopolitical rivals with the same transactional disdain, be they in Europe or Asia.
But in chastising India for not having a more open economy and its energy ties to Russia, the Trump administration is punishing the very nation the US has spent years cultivating as a democratic counterweight to China's power – creating an opening for Beijing.
This tactical realignment is underscored by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reported plans to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit later this month, which would be his first trip to China in seven years.
When asked to confirm Indian media reports about Modi's attendance, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing 'welcomes' Modi for the meeting. 'We believe that with the concerted effort of all parties, the Tianjin summit will be a gathering of solidarity, friendship and fruitful results,' said spokesperson Guo Jiakun.
Yet, as the niceties play out in public, analysts say this is an alliance of convenience, not conviction.
The deep-seated strategic distrust between Asia's two giants, born from their border conflict and struggle for regional dominance, remains firmly in place. For now, they are aligned partly not by a shared vision, but by a shared antagonist in the White House.
'We may see a greater thaw in India-China ties in face of a tough United States,' said Farwa Aamer, Director of South Asia Initiatives, Asia Society Policy Institute.
But she warned that New Delhi must not lose sight of Washington and 'risk reversing the growth in relations it has long worked hard on to achieve.'
India's relationship with the US has undergone a dramatic transformation, from Cold War estrangement to crucial partners in the 21st Century.
Since Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, swept to power in 2014, the relationship reached new heights, partly driven by the personal rapport he developed with Trump during his first term, during which the Indian leader cast aside staid diplomatic protocol to campaign for his counterpart's second term during a rally in Houston.
New Delhi's growing alignment with Washington became even more critical as its own relationship with Beijing cratered after deadly border clashes in 2020 pushed the two Asian giants further apart than at any time in decades.
The US' commitment to India deepened under the Biden administration, which identified New Delhi as a vital counterweight to Beijing's growing influence. President Joe Biden often lavished praise on Modi, while largely setting aside sharp criticism from rights groups over the Modi administration's alleged democratic backsliding at home.
But then came Trump's re-election, with a turbocharged 'America First' policy that looked far beyond confronting just China on trade.
In a move that threatens to shatter this two-decade consensus, the US president publicly reprimanded New Delhi earlier this month over its Russian oil imports, calling the Indian economy 'dead' and singling out India for Washington's highest global tariff rate.
With his new tariffs, Trump is punishing a country that currently imports 36% of its crude oil from Russia, much of it used to support its booming economy and growing 1.4 billion-strong population.
But by treating New Delhi a transactional adversary to be punished, Washington risks shattering a cornerstone of its Indo-Pacific strategy, said Milan Vaishnav, director and senior fellow, South Asia Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Trump's latest actions, 'take us right back to that era of estrangement,' he said. 'The US-India relationship is robust enough that it won't be undone overnight, but these moves have created a massive trust deficit on the Indian side.'
While many nations have rushed to strike trade deals with Trump to lower tariffs, India under Modi has been less willing to cave.
India shot back, calling the tariffs 'unfair' and 'unjustified,' pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump's move and noting that the US and Europe still buy Russian fertilizers and chemicals.
Trump has repeatedly called India a 'tariff king,' but a senior Indian official said the country is 'far from' it, noting that India imposes 'zero to low duties on many key US exports' including coal, pharmaceuticals, aircraft parts and machinery.
India imposes some higher tariffs on the US than vice versa, particularly on agricultural imports that attract a simple average tariff of 39% compared to the US's 5%, according to a report from the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
The 'mood (toward the US) is hardening in India, partly because of the way Mr. Trump has gone about and played his cards,' said Harsh V. Pant, vice president of foreign policy at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank. 'The way he does diplomacy through public channels, and the way he seems intent on reducing the space for the Modi government to maneuver.'
Modi, who was under pressure by opposition politicians to stand up to his long-term friend, defended his country at an event last week.
India will never compromise on the interests of farmers, fishermen and dairy farmers,' he said. 'I know personally, I will have to pay a heavy price for it, but I am ready for it.'
The unintended consequences of Trump's policies, analysts say, have the potential to push historic rivals New Delhi and Beijing into a strategic embrace.
There has been a gradual normalization of ties between India and China after Modi met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia last October. India and China agreed to resume direct commercial flights, Beijing recently agreed to reopen two pilgrimage sites in western Tibet to Indians for the first time in five years, and both started re-issuing tourist visas for each other's citizens.
'For its own economic reasons, namely a slowdown in growth and a slump in foreign direct investment, India has signaled a greater willingness to entertain warmer trade and investment linkages with China,' said Vaishnav, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But this convergence remains limited by the deep-seated mistrust between them, rooted in their deadly border clashes in the Himalayas and China's strategic entrenchment in Pakistan.
Vaishnav predicted the future would be one of duality: 'I expect we will see increasing economic cooperation coupled with strategic rivalry,' he said of the relationship between India and China.
Washington's willingness to antagonize a key partner like India has also baffled observers.
One view is that the Trump administration lacks a clear, overarching strategy, diminishing India's crucial role as a democratic counterweight to China.
'There is no coherent China policy in this administration,' said Vaishnav. 'Which means India's role as a bulwark against China is under-emphasized.'
He added that as Trump's mood on Russia soured, 'India's Russian oil imports became an easy target.'
A more personal motivation may also be at play.
Analysts suggest Trump's hostility could have been triggered by a bruised ego after India downplayed his alleged role in defusing a major crisis with Pakistan. Trump announced he had brokered a ceasefire following a military escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May.
While Islamabad publicly praised the claim and even nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, Indian officials refused to credit Washington's apparent intervention.
'After that, things went belly up,' Pant said. 'The (trade) deal which at one point seemed very doable, kept on going. And the more frustrated Mr. Trump has become, the more voluble he has become in terms of his public threats to India.'
Critics say Trump's policies could be leading to the very outcome some US strategists have long sought to avoid.
'It could be the worst outcome for the United States,' Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton told CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
'The irony here is that while the secondary tariffs against India are intended to hurt Russia, it could push India back closer to Russia and, ironically, closer to China, perhaps negotiating together against the US tariff efforts.'