India Must Ignore China's Outreach

The US will of course get a beating, but China, whose economy is not exactly in the best of health, will get an equally serious body blow. China wants to reserve all its resources to fight the US, and hence, is trying to ensure that its neighbourhood stays peaceful at such a critical time.

- JOYEETA BASU

At a time when the US and China are busy fighting a tariff war, it is interesting to see the sudden outreach by Beijing to New Delhi. A narrative is being sought to be built that the elephant and the dragon—India and China—should be tangoing together against the "wild man" of the West, President Donald Trump. There has been a distinctive softening of the hostile tone that Chinese media have always adopted towards India. Also an attempt is being made to mainstream the idea that Indians have come a long way in the last five years after the Galwan incident of 2020, and that they understand the benefits of normalization of India-China ties. The Chinese embassy in Delhi has started public outreach programs, and is posting saccharine sweet videos on X, singing paeans about India-China relations. A push is also coming from experts on East Asia that India should stop looking at the United States as a strategic partner and come into the ambit of China's sphere of influence, because that is where the future is.