New Delhi: A quiet diplomatic gesture from Beijing a personal letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Indian President Droupadi Murmu is now being credited with opening the door to a remarkable turnaround in India-China relations, according to a Bloomberg report quoting an unnamed Indian official. The letter, described as “secret” in nature, was less a formality and more a test: a probe into whether New Delhi was ready to recalibrate its strained ties with Beijing at a time when both nations were grappling with the aftershocks of former US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies.
Though addressed to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the contents of Xi’s letter swiftly found their way to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underscoring the weight of its message. According to the report, Xi warned against any prospective Indo-US agreements that might undermine China’s interests and even identified a provincial official who would take the lead in spearheading Beijing’s outreach to India. For New Delhi, the message was clear: Beijing was extending a hand, but it was also watching carefully.
The Modi government reportedly began treating the Chinese overture with greater seriousness in June, coinciding with a tense phase in its trade talks with Washington. At the time, Trump had raised tariffs on Indian exports and went so far as to claim credit for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Pahalgam terrorist attack that left 26 people dead. The claim irked New Delhi, which rejected any suggestion of outside mediation in its disputes with Islamabad. For India, Beijing’s discreet letter appeared as both a warning and an opportunity a chance to offset Washington’s unpredictable moves by easing its own tensions with China.
The months that followed saw a quiet but notable improvement in India-China ties. After years of border standoffs and a complete diplomatic freeze following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020, both sides accelerated talks on long-standing territorial disputes. The results were visible: Beijing agreed to relax curbs on crucial urea exports to India, New Delhi restored tourist visas for Chinese citizens after a prolonged suspension, and the two sides prepared to restart direct passenger flights within weeks.
Ironically, the trigger for this renewed cooperation was not Asia’s own calculations but Trump’s punitive tariffs, designed to punish China and later India. In March, after Washington doubled duties on Chinese imports, Beijing called on New Delhi to resist “hegemonism and power politics.” Xi himself invoked an old metaphor, declaring that the “elephant and dragon dancing together is the only right choice.” By July, the phrase had been picked up by Chinese officials and amplified by the state-run Global Times, which suggested the two Asian powers could even attempt a “ballet dance” in unison against US economic pressures.
The diplomatic choreography will take centre stage this week when PM Modi and Xi Jinping meet in Tianjin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit — their first direct encounter in nearly a year and Modi’s first visit to China in more than seven years. Analysts suggest Xi will seek to use the summit as a stage to project what a “post-American-led international order” might look like, especially as US attempts to isolate Beijing and its partners, including Russia and Iran, have met with limited success.
“This summit allows Xi to demonstrate that despite tariffs, sanctions, and pressure campaigns, China’s influence within the Global South is growing,” Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of The China-Global South Project, told Reuters. “Just look at how BRICS has rattled Donald Trump. That’s exactly what these forums are designed to do.”
The SCO summit in Tianjin will be the largest since the group’s founding in 2001, bringing together leaders from across Eurasia. Against this backdrop, the Xi-Modi meeting is expected to serve as both a symbolic reset and a test of whether the “secret letter” was merely an icebreaker or the start of a more enduring diplomatic realignment.