China and India are having a bit of a moment. Five years after a fatal confrontation on their unresolved border pushed relations over the edge, the two sides are rushing towards a detente. They are restoring peace along the border, reversing trade and investment curbs, easing visa restrictions to promote business and tourism, resuming direct flights and orchestrating a flurry of high-level official visits to formalise the thaw.
This weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting China for the first time in seven years, raising hopes that the tide may finally be turning on relations between these two historically antagonistic neighbours.
This unfamiliar spurt of bonhomie is partly driven by US President Donald Trump’s swingeing tariffs. China has been slapped with a 30 per cent levy, with the possibility of that figure reverting to 145 per cent in November if trade talks fail, while India is reeling from a 50 per cent tariff.
The treatment of India, which until very recently was treated as a prized American ally, has been particularly rough. Just a week after being hit with an initial 25 per cent tariff – higher than the 19 per cent imposed on Asian peers like Pakistan and Indonesia and the 15 per cent for South Korea and Japan – India found itself facing another 25 per cent duty for its trade and energy dealings with Russia.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, calls India the “laundromat for the Kremlin” and is promising to give the country hell. But for Indian exporters, that hell has already arrived, with many facing closure and hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line.
The Chinese ambassador in New Delhi promptly panned US “bullying” of India and welcomed “all Indian commodities to enter the Chinese market”. India is reciprocating by fast-tracking Chinese investments, which it had rebuffed for the past five years. In keeping with the times, the spirit of “Chindia” is back.
