India is again being pulled toward Beijing’s table through summits, “normalisation” signals, and the soft language of a thaw. But India should walk to China with its eyes open, not with its hopes leading the way. Because the core problem has not changed: the trust deficit with the Chinese Communist Party is structural, and no amount of choreography can paper over the pattern of words that soothe and actions that cut.
This is not an argument against diplomacy. India must talk. India must trade. India must keep channels open to prevent miscalculation in the high mountains. But India must also remember what the last decade has taught in blood, ice, and bad faith: stability with China is promised easily, and undone quickly, usually on ground China chooses.
Look at the very architecture both sides claim to respect. The two countries signed a 1993 agreement to maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control. A long chain of follow-on arrangements, including the 2013 Border Defence Cooperation Agreement, reaffirmed restraint, non-use of force, and mechanisms to prevent face-offs from becoming conflict. And yet, in June 2020, the Galwan Valley clash erupted the first deadly confrontation in decades killing at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. Reuters’ account describes how the clash unfolded despite the “rules” meant to prevent exactly this kind of disaster.
That is the first lesson India must keep on the front page of its mind: Beijing will sign frameworks and still create facts on the ground when it suits. It will speak of “peace” while moving in ways that force India to react.
Even during the period of renewed talks, the same double-track rhythm continues. On 18 August 2025, when Wang Yi arrived in Delhi for the Special Representatives dialogue, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said plainly that border peace is the foundation for “positive momentum” in ties, and that the relationship needs a “candid and constructive approach.”
Wang Yi, in the same diplomatic season, pushed the familiar line about “correct strategic understanding,” urging both sides to view each other as “partners and opportunities.”
The language is velvet. The record is iron.
Because while India and China talk about normalisation, China repeatedly sharpens its territorial narrative elsewhere. In April 2024, Reuters reported India rejecting China’s renaming of about 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh, calling it senseless and reiterating Arunachal is an integral part of India.
In May 2025, India’s MEA again rejected China’s “vain and preposterous attempts” to name places in Arunachal a fresh reminder that Beijing’s map-making does not pause for diplomacy.
And now, in January 2026, the Shaksgam dispute has reared up precisely when border diplomacy is supposed to be “stabilising.” On 9 January 2026, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated in a weekly briefing that Shaksgam Valley is Indian territory, that India has never recognised the 1963 China–Pakistan boundary agreement, that India does not recognise CPEC because it runs through territory under Pakistan’s illegal occupation, and that India reserves the right to take necessary measures to safeguard its interests.
On 12 January 2026, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded with the flat refusal India has heard for decades: she said the territory “belongs to China,” and that construction there is “fully justified.”
This is where the human reality begins to bite. Shaksgam is not just a line on a strategist’s board. As The Indian Express noted this week, it lies north of Siachen, and the “Trans-Karakoram Tract” spans more than 5,000 sq km. The same explainer cites a 2022 Lok Sabha response that Pakistan “illegally ceded” 5,180 sq km in Shaksgam to China under the 1963 agreement, and reiterates India’s long-standing position that China is in illegal occupation of approximately 38,000 sq km of Indian territory in Ladakh.
When Beijing hardens claims in Shaksgam even as it asks for trust elsewhere, it tells you what kind of negotiating partner you are dealing with: a party-state that treats borders as leverage, not as settled facts, and treats agreements as tools, not as constraints.
And it is this party-state that Ajit Doval and India’s leadership are sitting across from. Wang Yi is not simply a foreign minister. Both India’s MEA and China’s own readouts describe him as a senior CPC Politburo figure and China’s Special Representative on the boundary question a man operating inside the CCP’s command structure, not outside it.
Beijing is already framing the next steps in a way that pressures India to keep giving ground in the name of “momentum.” China’s official statement on the 19 August 2025 SR talks says the two sides agreed to hold the 25th SR talks in China next year, and it explicitly welcomed Modi’s planned visit for the SCO summit in Tianjin.
Reuters also reported that Modi was expected to visit China for the SCO summit in late August 2025, his first trip there in over seven years, a sign of thaw as wider global pressures shifted.
That is precisely why caution matters. When visits and optics become the currency, Beijing often collects symbolism now and bargains hard later.
Meanwhile, India itself is being tempted toward economic easing. On 8 January 2026, Reuters reported India is considering scrapping certain post-2020 restrictions on Chinese firms bidding for government contracts, rules imposed after the deadly border clash because ministries complain of delays and shortages. It noted the contracts affected were estimated at $700–$750 billion, and that the final decision would rest with the Prime Minister’s Office.
This is the dangerous moment: when fatigue sets in, when markets whisper “move on,” when diplomats speak of “predictability,” and when the public begins to forget what the frontier taught. That is when Beijing’s “talk one way, act another” becomes most profitable.
Yes, there has been progress. In October 2024, Reuters reported an agreement on patrolling meant to ease the Ladakh standoff, and Jaishankar’s own line was unforgettable: disturb peace and tranquility, and “how can the rest of the relationship go forward?”
But Shaksgam shows the limits of that progress. It proves that even when one corner of the relationship is being cooled, another is being heated sometimes deliberately, sometimes opportunistically, always with the same outcome: India is kept reacting, never simply building.
For ordinary Indians, this isn’t about abstract mistrust. It is about the soldier who stands through a Ladakh night where the wind can kill. It is about families who still carry 2020 in their bones. It is about Ladakhi communities watching maps and roads and “corridors” tighten around them. It is about the quiet fear that the next “incident” will again arrive after a round of talks that promised calm.
So yes India should talk to China. It should meet. It should keep the door unbolted. But it should go to Beijing the way our elders crossed mountain passes: with provisions packed, with exits known, with no romance about the weather. China is not a neighbour you persuade with warmth.
