INDIA'S CHINA CALCULUS AND THE POK QUESTION

India's strategic necessity in dealing with China and Pakistan is to compartmentalise challenges without diluting resolve. Improving relations with China should be an investment in bandwidth to settle the western question, and formalising the LoC as the international border with Pakistan remains the least risky path.

- KARAN KHARB

India has entered the mid-2020s with a rare confluence of leverage and risk. The eastern Ladakh standoff has not erased, but has disciplined, New Delhi's China policy. Meanwhile, Pakistan's economic fragility belies a defence budget that still prioritises parity by deterrence.

The strategic proposition is straightforward: India should press for a pragmatic improvement in ties with China-de-risking a two-front contingency and unlocking economic space—while dealing more firmly with Pakistan to settle the Kashmir dispute on terms that seal the “open wound” permanently. Those terms, realistically, are either a formalisation of the Line of Control (LoC) as the international border or, failing that, a decisive settlement that reunifies Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) with India.

Either path carries serious implications. The balance of irritants and enabling factors, however, increasingly favours New Delhi—if it sequences its diplomacy with Beijing and its coercive leverage vis-à-vis Islamabad with care.

The Case for a China Thaw

Any argument for firmness with Pakistan collapses without a realistic plan to reduce the China overhang on India’s northern rim. For years, India and China have held an intensive series of military and diplomatic engagements to stabilise the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed the 21st Corps Commander-level meeting on 19 February 2024, framing “complete disengagement in remaining areas” as the precondition for broader normalisation.