SCO: Between the dragon and the eagle

When Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi travelled to Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit recently, the symbolism was as striking as the substance was restrained. His visit to China was the first in seven years, and his presence at the SCO after a three-year hiatus brought together leaders of some of the world's most populous and powerful States. The images of Modi alongside Xi and Vladimir Putin conveyed a picture of multipolar solidarity, one that seemed designed to rattle Washington. Yet, beneath the photo-ops and rhetorical affirmations of “Asian solidarity,” India faces a familiar paradox in its strategic act of external affairs. The temptation to read too much into the apparent warmth with China risks blinding Delhi to the structural constraints in the bilateral relationship, while underestimating the resilience and depth of India's ties with the US would be a mistake.

The SCO summit gave the appearance of a diplomatic reset between India and China. Modi and Xi held an hour-long meeting in which they spoke of restoring balance in trade, strengthening people-to-people contact, resuming direct flights, and reopening the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. Xi told Modi that it was vital for the dragon and the elephant to walk together, calling for good neighbourliness and friendship. Modi, for his part, emphasised the importance of peace on the border and a more equitable trade relationship. The atmospherics were carefully managed, signalling to domestic and international audiences that the two Asian giants could again explore the possibility of coexistence rather than confrontation.

But the historical record offers reasons for scepticism. Since the 1950s, successive Indian leaders have sought rapprochement with Beijing. The effort collapsed with the 1962 war. Rajiv Gandhi's outreach in the late 1980s opened a period of relative calm, but the pattern of optimism unravelled once more in the last decade. Military tensions at Depsang in 2013, Chumar in 2014, Doklam in 2017, and the bloody clashes in Galwan in 2020 underscored the deep structural hostility on the boundary question. The Line of Actual Control remains unsettled, and China's infrastructure build-up along the frontier continues apace. These are not minor irritants but defining challenges that shape strategic mistrust. No summitry, however amicable, can dissolve these realities overnight.

Economic ties also reveal asymmetry rather than balance. India's annual trade deficit with China hovers around $100 billion, reflecting structural dependence on Chinese imports in critical sectors ranging from electronics to pharmaceuticals. While Beijing's market remains largely closed to Indian IT and services, Chinese companies have established a dominant position in Indian manufacturing supply chains. Delhi has repeatedly called for greater reciprocity, but progress has been patchy. Meanwhile, Beijing's “all-weather” partnership with Pakistan, underpinned by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), military assistance, and diplomatic shielding at the UN, reinforces India's strategic vulnerabilities. Modi's reaffirmation at the SCO that India will not dilute its opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative or compromise on terrorism was a reminder that some issues are non-negotiable. The reality is that as long as Pakistan occupies a central role in Beijing's South Asia calculus, India's room for manoeuvre with China will remain limited.

The SCO itself has grown into a prominent stage for Beijing and Moscow to showcase their alternative vision of global order. Xi used this year's summit to push initiatives in finance, Artificial Intelligence, and infrastructure that seek to reduce dependence on western institutions. Russia, isolated by sanctions, found comfort in the embrace of non-Western partners. For India, participation in such platforms offers opportunities for regional engagement and a stage to assert its role as an independent pole in world affairs. But the summit's choreography should not obscure the contradictions that run through it. China and Russia often seek to use the SCO to challenge the West, while India continues to value its partnerships with the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Delhi's refusal to endorse the Belt and Road, its reservations on counter-terrorism language that soft-pedals Pakistan, and its consistent emphasis on sovereignty highlight the tensions inherent in its membership.

If the SCO stage rattled Washington, it did so at a time when US-India relations are undergoing a visible strain. President Donald Trump has slapped tariffs of up to 50 per cent on Indian goods, citing Delhi's refusal to scale back oil imports from Russia and disagreements over market access. The rhetoric has been unusually sharp, with senior US officials branding India, alongside China and Russia, as a “bad actor” in global trade. Against this backdrop, Modi's handshakes with Xi and Putin were bound to generate speculation about India drifting away from Washington.

Such speculation, however, misreads both history and structure. Unlike China, the US is not sitting on Indian territory. It does not arm Pakistan or seek to redraw borders in Asia. It is India's largest export destination, a vital partner in science, technology, and higher education, and a source of investment in cutting-edge sectors from semiconductors to renewable energy. India runs a $40 billion trade surplus with the US, in stark contrast to its deficit with China. Trade frictions, however acute, are negotiable; structural imbalances with China are not so easily rectified. Moreover, the US and India have over the past two decades painstakingly built strategic cooperation that spans defence interoperability, counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing, and maritime security in the Indo-Pacific.

Yet India's foreign policy elite has often tended to overestimate the possibilities with China and underestimate those with the US. The excitement in parts of Delhi over Modi's cordial meeting with Xi reflects a recurring illusion that relations with Beijing can be “reset” if only political will is applied. This ignores the persistence of strategic competition rooted in geography, ideology, and power. Conversely, public disagreements with Washington, whether over tariffs or Russia, often obscure the deeper convergences. Both countries remain invested in maintaining a balance of power in Asia that prevents Chinese hegemony. Both share concerns over technology standards, supply-chain resilience, and the future of maritime commons. Both, for all their differences, are democracies with overlapping interests in sustaining an open, rules-based international order.

The re-emergence of Quad in recent years exemplified this convergence. China fretted openly about the group's activities, viewing it as a counterweight in the Indo-Pacific. Now, with Trump's tariffs and Washington's public pressure tactics, there is commentary that Quad has been defanged. But that is a mischaracterisation. While leadership styles matter, the underlying logic of US–India–Japan–Australia cooperation is enduring. It is not a transient coalition of convenience but a response to shared strategic concerns. For India, engaging China at the SCO does not negate the continuing relevance of Quad; rather, it reflects the balancing act intrinsic to Delhi's quest for strategic autonomy.

The challenge for India lies in maintaining clarity amid this balancing. Strategic autonomy is not about drifting between poles opportunistically; it is about shaping an environment where India can pursue its national interests without being subsumed by another power's agenda. In practical terms, that means engaging China to prevent conflict, but without illusions about partnership. It means negotiating smartly with Washington over tariffs and Russia, but without letting tactical disputes undermine structural alignments.

The SCO summit reminds us of the theatre of international politics, where symbolism often exceeds substance. Modi's presence in China, his first in seven years, was necessary to prevent relations from sliding further into hostility. But the structural impediments to an India–China thaw remain formidable. At the same time, the visible chill with Washington should not obscure the deeper reality that no stable Asian or global order can be built without robust US–India cooperation. In this persistent paradox, Delhi must avoid the twin dangers of overestimating China and underestimating the US.

This article is authored by Amal Chandra, political analyst and coordinator, Students For Liberty (SFL) India.

Source: HindustanTimes
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