The Dragon and the Elephant: What America Must Learn From Xi's Visit to New Delhi
Here’s How China-India Reconciliation Will Shake-up the World Order
Article Written by Jett James Pruitt
On September 12, 2026, China’s President Xi Jinping announced a mutual desire to thaw diplomatic tensions with India while meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. Xi asserted in a video published during the conference “Although our two countries are different in many respects, they are fully capable of complementing each other’s strengths, supporting one another, achieving mutual success, and advancing together.”
In response, India’s foreign ministry reiterated Modi’s commitment to resolving ambiguities over the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an ill-defined notion of the Sino-Indian border that has served as an underlying source of contention between the two Asian powers for decades.
Recently, tensions between the two countries flared after a military clash in 2020 resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. Following this incident, Xi and Modi refused to hold bilateral summits or diplomatically engage until the former’s visit to BRICS on September 12.
Why is China suddenly changing course?
Pallavi Aiyar, an Indian political journalist and author, explains the Xi administration is capitalizing on an opportunity to pull India away from the United States’ geopolitical orbit, commenting to South Asian Voices:
"I think China sees this as a moment in which, perhaps because of what’s happening with President Trump and the kinds of pressures that he’s putting on India, it could be a moment where India can be dislodged from an anti-China camp. Beijing has very much seen things like the Quad as being a mechanism that’s working against China. And, so this, in some ways, is a moment in which it’s possible that India will finally see that its interests do not lie that way. India is also, obviously, a big market, and when it comes to the Chinese economy, they need places where their capacity can be absorbed.” She further observes that since India is an immediate neighbor, China is looking to “reset relationships where it is possible for it to reset them.”
Meanwhile, just as Xi is attempting to reconcile with New Delhi, the Trump administration is poised to enact punitive tariffs on India for purchasing crude oil from Russia. Signed on September 18, 2026, the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act provides the president with broad authority to impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods from countries that are either prominent purchasers of Russian energy or assist Moscow in evading international sanctions. In FY2026, India bought more than $40 billion worth of oil from Russia. At one point in July 2026, Moscow supplied more than half of India’s imported crude oil.
In effect, just as China is trying to pull in its neighbor, the US is effectively pushing India away.
Granted, the US has developed a solid framework of cooperation (vis-à-vis the Quad) with New Delhi that makes a modest rapprochement between Xi and Modi unlikely to upend America’s economic and security partnership with India. Nevertheless, China would be in a prime position to exert even greater influence over Global South countries with the possibility of India in its corner.
There are still a number of pressing issues that make full reconciliation challenging. For example, New Delhi objects to a recent treaty between China and Pakistan recognizing the latter’s ownership of a remote region in the Himalayas. Moreover, China is reportedly suspicious of America’s influence over India, with Xi calling for cooperation, rather than competition, in Southeast Asia.
Regardless, there is one key takeaway American policymakers must gather from the recent thaw in China-India relations: Xi’s attempt for reconciliation indicates that economic coercion alone is no longer a sustainable instrument of projecting geopolitical power. The Trump administration’s decision to enact secondary tariffs therefore risks straining a relationship that simply does not need to be impaired.
From this point forward, the United States must adhere to the notion of ‘managed strategic competition,’ a term coined by former Australian Prime Minister and international relations scholar Kevin Rudd. This phrase posits both the US and China benefit from a geopolitical equilibrium precluding outright conflict while simultaneously allowing each nation to pursue its strategic objectives within the confines of international law. On this premise, the Trump administration is making a strategic mistake in enjoining India with its posture on Russia.
Only time will tell whether India and China can fully amend bilateral relations. Yet, it is evident America must embrace 'soft power' and calibrated agreements to preserve its preeminence on the world stage, rather than through pressure or punitive economic measures alone.
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Jett James Pruitt is a Native American, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of the bestselling book THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG AMERICAN. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of TheGenZPost.com and a political strategist specializing in Generation Z voter trends. He is currently a B.A. International Politics student at The University of London Institute in Paris. His next book, THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE: What America's Political Parties Must Do To Win Over Generation Z, will be released in major bookstores worldwide early 2027.
ARRIVING IN BOOKSTORES EARLY 2027
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