Between Trump’s US and Xi’s China, the trap India must avoid

As global upheavals persist and both US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are acutely aware of their respective vulnerabilities, their two nations have met twice in 2026. This US-China rapprochement could potentially reshape geopolitics, geoeconomics, and techno-capitalism, possibly restoring a semblance of global order.

Washington has temporarily halted its containment strategy, acknowledging China's limitations in dictating global affairs. Concurrently, Beijing recognizes the constraints of dictating geopolitical outcomes. Both realize the shared concern to curb global disruptions and the downsides of economic decoupling. As China's report "The Great Global Transformation and the Path to US-China Coexistence" suggests, China has survived America's offensive phase, established a strategic stalemate, and emerged as a "near-peer". This position implies an "inevitable peace."

Living between two rising power blocs, India, and the Global South face structural questions. The "Thucydides Trap" referenced by Xi JinPing explains the challenges for established powers confronting rising ones, and great powers colluding to constrain third powers. Can India independently shape the emerging world order or influence the G2? If not, will the G2 transcend self-interest to prioritize systemic stability and a fairer world?

A section of India's strategic establishment has long advocated anchoring India's future to Washington, assuming America's dependence on India to contain China. However, the Trump administration has suggested its acceptance of a Chinese sphere of influence temporarily. Additionally, the White House's 2025 National Security Doctrine indicates a diminished strategic significance for India, making the Philippines and the "Squad" more valuable than India and the "Quad".

Washington also seems to draw a line by limiting India's growth in the Indian Ocean Region and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau has declared that India won't be allowed to grow like China. Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attempts to court the Republican Party's radical faction, the BJP government has yielded to Trumpian demands, contradicting its decolonisation and strategic autonomy rhetoric.

It has accepted punishing tariffs, stirred dangerous subcontinental dynamics, attacked India's energy sovereignty and shipping.

Instead of confronting these issues, the BJP government has purchased American goods worth $500 billion, restructured India's AI/digital infrastructure around a US-led stack, and ignored curbs on Indian immigration. These measures raise discomforting questions - does Washington view India as a sovereign equal or merely a junior partner serving its interests?

On the other hand, China's violations of India's territorial integrity, weaponisation of our dependencies, striving for a unipolar Asia, stymieing India's membership bids for the UNSC and Nuclear Suppliers Group, and empowering Pakistan have forced India to strengthen Indo-Pacific partnerships as geopolitical insurance. Faced with converging and competing Sino-American imperatives, India risks sliding into the Thucydides Trap.

However, the BJP government's asymmetric relationships and performative foreign policy, prioritising optics over tangible national interest gains, compounded by its intellectual and strategic inertia, are locking India into semi-peripheral status and constraining it at this historic geopolitical inflection. A seat at the global high table necessitates protecting our interests and shaping the future.

India must deepen bilateral relationships and forge a value-aligned global community. This requires recalibrating economic, industrial, and investment policies as statecraft instruments, building a durable industrial base, depoliticising governance, cohesive federal leadership, substantively enhancing the quality of life for all, and fostering an Indian Dream that outpaces the American myth.

This can only be achieved with mature leadership, a clear strategic vision, institutional coherence, and adept global engagement rather than the BJP's ideological, performative, and reactionary internationalism.