Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Why India Should End Its Endless Folly Over China

The saying “Once bitten, twice shy” does not seem to apply to successive rulers of Independent India when it comes to relations with China. The meaning of the proverb is clear: If you have had a bad or painful experience, you will be more careful about repeating it. But not when Delhi faces the Dragon. Can India release the full list of how many times it has been bitten by China from 1950 to 2026 and how many times New Delhi has tried to take corrective steps rather than “business as usual”? The list of hostile actions by China is so long that it would be a great embarrassment for 21st century India if a serious student of international relations were to unearth open-source figures that successive Indian rulers have failed to grasp the danger from the Dragon.

Take the latest example of China’s betrayal and ill will towards India. On May 7, the first anniversary of Operation Sindoor, when India responded to Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack (the operation lasted four days), Beijing officially demonstrated its covert role in supporting its proxy Islamabad. A Chinese engineer said that during the four-day India-Pakistan conflict, a Chinese team was deployed to a base in Pakistan to provide full-time technical support in the field and ensure that Chinese-made J-10 CE fighter jets could operate with maximum efficiency. “Our experience was not just getting to know our flying machine, it was also a testament to the deep bonds we have formed (with the Pakistan Air Force) by working side by side every day,” said Engineer Zhang. He also claimed that he took part in shooting down high-tech Indian warplanes.

As of May 2026, China has a trade surplus with India of $115 billion. Military Balance 2026 (IISS London) reported that India’s 2025 defense budget is $78 billion. Is India’s $115 billion trade deficit helping China’s $251.3 billion defense budget?

When India and Pakistan clashed a year ago, China joined in and took an undisclosed role in the conflict. But still New Delhi’s diplomats seem strangely reluctant to take any active countermeasures against Beijing.

Why is this country so determined to repeat the mistakes of the Jawaharlal Nehru era, when our first Prime Minister faced criticism in some political circles? Had the Ministry of External Affairs ignored reports in July 2025 quoting the then Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Rahul Singh, as saying that “China was giving live inputs to Pakistan on India’s deployment”?

Is the Indian government unaware that China, along with its illegal and hostile takeover of land and territory, is constantly weakening and crippling India’s economy, industry, trade, commerce and several other sectors of strategic importance?

Recently, more than a week ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested that India be ready to face the “situation” of economic crisis that has developed in the wake of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. The stern warning comes as the falling rupee and rising current account deficit pose a real challenge to the country’s economy, fuel shortages, fertilizers and depletion of India’s foreign exchange reserves. Clearly, the Prime Minister’s recommendations to “avoid buying gold, reduce foreign travel, reduce fuel consumption, reduce the use of edible oil and save on fertilizer on the field” are all strictly linked to preserving foreign exchange for essential items.

However, here too the China factor comes into play. Apart from bilateral India-China trade, after five years of cold diplomacy following the massacre of Indian soldiers in Galvan in June 2020, China has had unusually favorable terms and conditions to sink the Indian market in the last year. The situation is so bad that India needs to take an urgent policy decision to restrict imports of non-essential merchandise and reconsider manufacturing-related issues.

A few examples will show what a difficult situation India is facing due to its own wrong decision, which has provided China with astronomical profits to squeeze New Delhi into its territory. The announcement that direct flights between Kolkata and Guangzhou will soon begin in October 2025 made traders and businessmen happy. These traders mostly import mobile phone spare parts from China and frequently visit Guangzhou. One said: “I go to Guangzhou every four months to buy spare parts for mobile phones. Now I go via Singapore, it takes ten hours. Direct flights would be faster and cheaper. I can go more often.” Are these individual ‘shopping tours’ to China good news for the Indian industry?

It was reported that leather goods traders are also very happy to import leather goods accessories such as zippers, chains and metal buttons from China and export final products. If traders spend precious foreign exchange on frequent visits to China just to import goods such as “spare parts for mobile phones, zippers for leather goods, chains and metal buttons”, India will surely face a crisis. Isn’t it time for the government to impose restrictions on such unnecessary and absolutely unnecessary imports? Has the Indian industry been so decimated that it cannot produce these products?

It is time to look at the irreparable damage that China has inflicted on the Indian economy due to New Delhi’s own diplomatic blunders. India’s deficit, in its current form, cannot be resolved overnight due to the long cumulative negative trade balance and the continuous depreciation of the Indian rupee against the US dollar. As of now, one US dollar comes to Rs 96.82. Earlier, on December 19, 2024, the rupee had crossed 85 rupees per dollar and fell to 86.62 rupees on January 13. Imagine the rupee falling from Rs 85 to Rs 97 per dollar in less than 17 months.

China’s situation goes from bad to worse. Let defense and diplomacy continue at their own pace. But economy and trade are now an emergency. An eroding economy will only lead to subpar defense and ineffective diplomacy.

Let Parliament debate the 145th report of the Rajya Sabha standing committee on commerce, which was tabled in July 2018. Here are some quotes: “As the US and the EU act aggressively on the erosion of their domestic industries and loss of jobs, the government should be proactive in taking trade defense measures by imposing restrictions on imports of such Chinese goods that erode our production capacity.”

“The impact of Chinese imports threatens to turn India into an importing country as factories either cut production or shut down completely. India cannot afford to have its own industry, including MSMEs, destroyed.”

Therefore, India needs to cut at least $100 billion from the $115 billion China trade deficit. Independent India cannot afford to be defeated by foreigners.

The writer is a graduate of the National Defense College, New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.