Evaluate the foreign policy of India with special reference to Pakistan and China in the present context. (1998)
Pakistan and China are India’s two nuclear-armed neighbours with contested land borders, a combination no other major power faces. India’s policy toward them now follows two logics: coercive deterrence toward Pakistan and managed rivalry toward China. Each must be judged against its purpose and its costs.
Pakistan: from engagement to cost imposition
- The shift: the composite dialogue and the Lahore (1999) and Agra (2001) attempts gave way, after Uri (2016) and Pulwama (2019), to the principle that terror and talks cannot go together.
- 2025 escalation: after the Pahalgam attack (22 April), India held the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, closed Attari and launched Operation Sindoor (7–10 May). Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “new normal” treats terrorists and their sponsors alike and rejects nuclear blackmail.
- Legal and diplomatic position: India rejected the Court of Arbitration award of 31 August 2026 that the treaty remains in force, denying the tribunal’s competence, and insists on bilateralism under the Simla Agreement, refusing American mediation.
- Gains: deterrence below the nuclear threshold, and terrorism placed at the centre of the agenda.
- Limits: Pakistan’s conduct has not demonstrably changed; its army gained power through the 27th Amendment (November 2025), which made Asim Munir Chief of Defence Forces; Islamabad’s defence pact with Saudi Arabia (September 2025) and Washington’s renewed warmth revived the hyphenation India had escaped; and India did not invoke the doctrine after the Red Fort bombing (November 2025).
China: rivalry managed, not resolved
- The shock: the 2020 eastern Ladakh crisis and Galwan, the first fatal clash since 1975, ended the post-1988 bargain of keeping the boundary separate from the wider relationship.
- Normalisation: the October 2024 patrolling arrangement; leader meetings at Kazan (2024) and Tianjin (2025); resumed flights and the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra; the 25th Special Representatives’ round in Beijing (25 August 2026) with an eight-point consensus; and Modi–Xi talks at the New Delhi BRICS summit (September 2026), where India called border peace essential.
- What is missing: disengagement without de-escalation; forces remain forward; no delimitation.
- Economic dependence: China became India’s largest trading partner in 2025–26 with a deficit of about $112 billion; Beijing has used export controls on rare earths and fertilisers; and the Yarlung Tsangpo mega-dam begun in 2025 has no water treaty behind it.
- Balancing: the Quad, the Indo-Pacific framing and US technology ties hedge, while BRICS and the SCO keep channels open.
The collusive threat
China supplied 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2021–25 (SIPRI) and shields it diplomatically. Indian officers said China gave Pakistan live operational inputs in May 2025, making the two-front problem real.
Evaluation through theory
- Realists such as Rajesh Rajagopalan see India balancing China externally while deterring Pakistan, the right division of effort.
- Nehruvian critics argue that isolating Pakistan forecloses settlement and that water coercion erodes India’s standing as a rule-respecting state.
- Liberal-institutionalists fault the China policy for tolerating deep dependence while reducing the border to procedure.
- In Shivshankar Menon’s Choices (2016), restraint after 26/11 was a deliberate strategic choice; the post-2016 record replaces it with calibrated force against Pakistan but not China, reflecting relative power.
Conclusion
India’s policy is coherent but asymmetric: punitive toward a weaker Pakistan, cautious and transactional toward a stronger China. It has bought deterrence and LAC stability, not resolution. The way forward lies in narrowing the power gap with China, reducing import dependence, and keeping back-channels to Pakistan open without conceding the terror precondition.