Thaw in China-India ties is real, but don’t call it reconciliation

Six years after the Ladakh crisis erupted in May 2020, triggering the worst military confrontation between India and China in decades, the two countries are attempting something that once seemed improbable: a diplomatic reset.

The latest indication came late last month when officials met in Beijing for the 35th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs. The message emerging from the talks was positive. The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace along the Line of Actual Control while gradually rebuilding broader ties.

The thaw is increasingly visible. The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra – a sacred Hindu pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet – resumed after a five-year hiatus last year. Direct flights between India and China have also been restored. Dialogue on transboundary rivers has restarted, while officials are exploring ways to ease restrictions that have constrained business, tourism and people-to-people exchanges since relations plunged into crisis in 2020.

Yet the renewed engagement raises a larger question: are Asia’s two giants entering a more stable phase of coexistence or merely managing a rivalry neither can afford to escalate? The answer lies somewhere in between. The effort at rapprochement is not being driven by trust. It is being driven by necessity.

For India, a permanently militarised frontier imposes significant financial and strategic costs. Maintaining tens of thousands of troops at high altitude since 2020 has stretched resources that could otherwise support military modernisation and maritime priorities in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi also recognises that sustained economic growth requires a more predictable regional environment.

China has its own incentives. Slowing growth, demographic pressures and intensifying competition with the United States have increased the value of a calmer relationship with its largest neighbour. Reducing tensions with India allows Beijing to focus on more pressing strategic challenges while limiting the risk of pushing Delhi further into Washington’s orbit. In short, neither side sees continued confrontation as serving its long-term interests.