Pacific Forum published this article at its original publication. It is republished with authority.
Over the past few years, the rectangular calculation between China, the United States, and India has undergone significant changes. In light of recent rapid changes, such as Donald Trump’s returning to the global stage and the melting of tensions between Delhi and Beijing, taking into account such long-term trends helps to understand the emerging sure of the triangle interactions.
During the Cold War, the preliminary euphoria over Eastern cooperation, bringing India and China up, gave way to regional conflict, resulting in a continuous freeze in their relationships.
While India’s connection with the US remained weak during this period according to intellectual, development, and political differences, China’s volte-face in its relationship trajectory with the US — from enmity to partnership — aimed to store their common adversary in the Soviet Union.
Basically, Indo-US and the Sino-US relationships during the Cold War were very dependant on the three countries ‘ individual formulas with the Soviet Union.
Thus, there arose a cycle of integration between the three following the fall of the Soviet Union, with the rapidly globalizing world order bringing the trio closer together through financial interdependence.
In the end, China’s growing confidence and revisionist rhetoric ultimately led to a growing mistrust of its connections with both India and the US. This played a significant role in bringing India and the US up, resulting in an increasing degree of alignment in their plans toward China.
Since the US and China have diplomatic relations, the two nations have been trying to link their economy in a close embrace based on their complement strengths. In exchange for China absorbing technological advancements and monetary assets from the world’s remaining power, the US gained the cost benefit and massive business hopes offered by China.
Washington began to reconsider its position on Beijing as a result of the growing awareness of the structural challenges that China faces in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis ( 2007-2009 ) and China’s expansionist tendencies in Asia. China truly weighed strongly on the United States ‘ “rebalance to Asia” plan, and the subsequent expression of a” Free and Open Indo-Pacific” plan. A key component of this shift might get putting pressure on China by strengthening the US presence in the latter’s local environment.
The United States ‘ first major diplomatic engagement with China occurred during Trump’s first term as president. Though the energy to “decouple” the American market from China was recrafted as a more subtle “derisking” under the Biden administration, the momentum to eliminate any deadly dependency on China has no slowed.
Trump’s return with a hawkish cabinet already signals a ratcheting up of America’s pressure on China.
To be sure, Trump’s tariff threats are not limited to China. India, too, is a target, as his tariff strategy is known to be rather indiscriminate.
On a similar note, India and China’s relations have undergone strain during the same period, nosediving in the past half decade. Despite intensifying border disputes and geopolitical conflict in Asia, the two nations maintained a positive trend in their bilateral and multilateral relations.
New Delhi and Beijing stepped up their engagement through economic cooperation and saw eye-to-eye on many issues concerning the Global South in the 21st , century, even though they slipped from the path of border “resolution” to that of border “management”.
With the 2020 conflict in Galwan, this delicate balance abruptly came to an end, halting the two nations ‘ growing economic and development partnership.
India severely curbed Chinese mobile applications in the country by keeping China’s communication equipment out of its troubled sectors.  , India insisted that China cannot conduct “business-as-usual” with India while unilaterally violating its territorial status-quo, as well as established agreements in the border areas.
India’s economic and security ties with the US and the other Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (” Quad” ) nations increased during this period.
However, after four years of negotiations, India and China have recently reached a point where they no longer ally themselves at the friction points in their borders. This phase will then be followed by a de-induction of forces. This opens the door to a resumption of the relationship after the 2020s, though it will most likely be a gradual transition that will depend on the recovery of the trust.
Indo-US relations, on the other hand, have now gone past irreversible milestones of progress in ties.
The two key international policy issues for which there is a bipartisan consensus are the two important issues that the US is concerned about: investing in a strengthened strategic partnership with India and fighting China’s strategic challenge to American primacy and the rules-based international order.
These imperatives of the US align with India’s outlook, moreover, India’s civilizational perspective on strategic thinking points toward an adversarial neighbor being encircled by distant partners. India continues to be a crucial link between the US and the expanding Global South.
China, with its revanchist-revisionist vision rooted in Confucian hierarchy and the” Century of Humiliation” narrative, undoubtedly will remain a systemic rival to America’s vision of a liberal world order.
Despite the ensuing thaw in relations, India’s approach to China will continue to have a sense of trepidation that has been reinforced in its strategic calculus. India’s strategic positioning, its demographic dividend and its enduring democratic ethos ensure an organic deepening of Indo-US ties.
India will have to navigate the short-term turbulences in its relations with both the US and China, keeping this larger picture in mind. India needs to exercise extreme caution as it charts the return to normalcy in bilateral ties given China’s track record. India must strengthen its relationship with the US in order to improve and maintain its relationship with China.
The US’s incoming administration should rebalance its priorities for foreign policy so that the Indo-Pacific regains dominance in the country’s geography. Given Trump’s efforts to revive the Quad during his first term and his assurances to put an end to the ongoing conflicts in Europe and West Asia, this shouldn’t be so difficult. The triangular equation can be adjusted to achieve strategic equilibrium in the looming uncertainty using these techniques.
Dr. Anand V.  , ( anand. v@manipal .edu , )  , is an assistant professor ( senior scale ) and coordinator of the China Study Center at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education.