India–China Reset 2025: A Tactical Thaw or a Strategic Trap After Galwan?
NEW DELHI: Five years after the deadly Galwan Valley clash shattered trust between India and China, New Delhi and Beijing are cautiously reopening channels. The moment is striking, even ironic. The last time India placed faith in China at the highest political level, history left scars that still shape strategic thinking today.
In 2025, India–China relations have taken an unexpected turn. After years of frozen diplomacy, military standoffs, and uncompromising rhetoric, both sides have stepped back from the brink, at least outwardly. High-level engagements have resumed. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Delhi, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.
Disengagement talks at sensitive friction points like Depsang and Demchok were revived. Commercial flights between major cities restarted after a five-year halt. Limited trade channels reopened. For a relationship defined by distrust since 2020, the sudden thaw has raised more questions than comfort.
A History That Refuses to Fade
India–China ties are burdened by memory. The trauma of the 1962 war, recurring border confrontations, the Doklam standoff, and the prolonged deadlock after the Galwan clash form the backdrop to today’s reset. Against this history, the central question looms large: how stable is this calm, and what is it really built on?
Analysts agree the answer lies less in reconciliation and more in compulsion. Strategic pressure, economic stress, and shifting global alignments appear to have pushed both capitals toward a phase of managed stability rather than genuine trust.
What Reopened in 2025
The reset unlocked channels frozen since 2020. Passenger flights between Delhi and Beijing resumed, restoring business travel and limited people-to-people contact. Border trade routes such as Nathu La in Sikkim reopened, allowing local exchanges. Diplomatic mechanisms, from special envoys to boundary working groups, were quietly revived.
None of this resolved the core border dispute. But it restored a minimum level of predictability to a relationship that had grown dangerously brittle.
Trade Revival Masks a Deeper Risk
India’s exports to China surged in November 2025, jumping 90% year-on-year to $2.2 billion, according to the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). From April to November, exports rose 33% to $12.2 billion, signalling a surface-level revival.
Yet beneath the headline numbers lies a stark imbalance. Export growth remains narrow and volatile, driven largely by naphtha and select electronics. Meanwhile, India’s imports from China remain deeply entrenched. Electronics alone accounted for $38 billion in imports in 2025, followed by machinery, chemicals, plastics, and critical components such as lithium-ion batteries and pharmaceutical intermediates.
The trade deficit tells the real story. India’s imports from China are projected to hit $123.5 billion in 2025, pushing the deficit toward $106 billion, with Chinese data suggesting an even wider gap. GTRI warns that without expanding competitive manufacturing, short-term export spikes will not change the structural imbalance.
A Detente Born of Pressure
Many experts see the 2025 thaw as tactical rather than transformative. Strategic analyst Ashley Tellis has described the detente as driven by US tariff pressure and economic stress, not by genuine border resolution.
For Beijing, renewed US tariffs, a slowing economy, and Western efforts to diversify supply chains made stabilising ties with India economically and diplomatically useful. For New Delhi, prolonged troop deployments along the Line of Actual Control strained resources, while supply-chain disruptions highlighted the costs of sustained confrontation with the world’s manufacturing hub.
What emerged was a carefully hedged reset, designed to manage risk, not end rivalry.
How Long Can This Last?
The sustainability of the thaw remains uncertain. There is still no agreed demarcation of the Line of Actual Control, and troop levels remain elevated. Even minor patrol incidents could spiral quickly.
Political flashpoints persist. The Dalai Lama’s presence in India, Beijing’s anxieties over succession, and China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan continue to cast long shadows. Former Indian ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale has made it clear that some red lines remain immovable, including the exclusion of Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE from India’s telecom sector.
What It Means for India’s Foreign Policy
India’s outreach does not signal a pivot away from the United States, but a continuation of strategic hedging. Engagement with China allows New Delhi to preserve autonomy, avoid over-dependence on any one power, and strengthen its hand in multilateral forums such as the SCO and BRICS.
With tensions temporarily eased, India can press Global South priorities while quietly reinforcing its neighbourhood strategy, deepening ties with Bhutan and countering Chinese influence in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The Tightrope Ahead
India now stands at a familiar crossroads. Tactical accommodation with China has historically proven fragile. Strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney has warned that periods of calm often rest on assumptions vulnerable to sudden shocks, whether from border incidents, regional crises, or domestic political pressures.
Going forward, India must balance diplomacy with vigilance. Military readiness along the LAC cannot be relaxed. Economically, reducing dependence on Chinese imports in electronics, pharmaceuticals, and clean energy components is no longer optional.
The 2025 thaw offers breathing space, not certainty. The challenge for New Delhi will be to secure short-term stability without falling into long-term strategic illusion.