August 23, 2025 12:20 PM IST First published on: Aug 23, 2025 at 12:20 PM ISTShareIndia faces renewed pressures to diversify its partnerships. The United States, still the world’s foremost power, has become erratic under a transactional presidency that seems to prize tariff salvos and rhetorical bluster over steady statecraft. For New Delhi, already tested by the vicissitudes of Ukraine’s war and its spillover into global energy and food markets, the idea of hedging between Washington and Beijing may appear enticing. Why not play one against the other, drawing concessions from both, as middle powers often do? Why not use American unpredictability as the pretext for an Indian “reset” with China?On the surface, the argument carries weight. India depends on Chinese trade even as it leans on American technology, capital, and defence cooperation. A strategy of “both/and” could be framed as pragmatic, allowing India to extract benefits from both giants while committing fully to neither. This would echo the non-alignment posture Jawaharlal Nehru once attempted in the early Cold War, when India sought to stand apart from superpower rivalry and maintain space for its own developmental agenda.AdvertisementBut here is where the parallel collapses — where the notion of a China hedge becomes not just premature but profoundly misplaced. Unlike the US, China does not regard India as an interlocutor of consequence. Beijing neither respects India as a peer nor sees intrinsic value in India’s rise. To imagine otherwise is to repeat Nehru’s tragic misreading after Independence, when idealistic overtures toward Beijing were met with border perfidy and humiliation in 1962.Advocates of hedging argue that China, facing its own slowdown, needs friends against an unpredictable America. But the reality is starker: Beijing looks east to Japan and south to Southeast Asia, not west to India, for trade and supply chain integration. Where China looks to India, it is with suspicion, not partnership. Border militarisation in Ladakh, encirclement through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and maritime projection into the Indian Ocean all testify to a strategic view of India as an obstacle, not an opportunity.Even India’s market, the oft-cited leverage, is not decisive. China trades more in a single quarter with ASEAN than it does with India in an entire year. The asymmetry is structural: India seeks access to Chinese supply chains, while China seeks to keep India boxed within South Asia. This is not a relationship of peers negotiating a hedge. It is a relationship of unequals where one side believes the other can be pressured at will.AdvertisementYes, Washington has grown unpredictable. A president enamoured of tariffs, transactional deals, and sudden threats of troop withdrawals rattles partners. But unpredictability does not mean hostility. Despite rhetorical flare-ups, American administrations across parties have steadily deepened defense and technology ties with India. The Quad, critical semiconductor initiatives, cooperation in AI, and shared concerns about open sea-lanes all testify to a convergence that endures beyond one presidency’s temperamental style.Moreover, the US — unlike China — does not see India’s rise as a threat. In fact, American policymakers increasingly see India as a counterweight necessary for balancing the Indo-Pacific. That structural alignment is far more enduring than Beijing’s grudging tolerance. Hedging too far toward China risks undermining the very trust India has built painstakingly in Washington and Tokyo.Also Read | Wang Yi in Delhi: India and China have contrasting approaches to resolving tensionsNehru once extended a hand of Asian solidarity to Mao, envisioning India and China as twin pillars of post-colonial leadership. He spoke of Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai, only to be met with territorial encroachment and eventual war. That episode was not an aberration but a window into how Beijing sees India: As an interlocutor to be placated until convenient, then undercut when possible.Sixty years later, the pattern endures. Chinese leaders have not backed India’s UN Security Council aspirations. They have not relented in shielding Pakistan from accountability for terrorism. They have not permitted Indian entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. To pursue a reset with such a partner is not hedging — it is self-delusion.most readDoes this mean India must throw itself entirely into Washington’s embrace? Not necessarily. Strategic autonomy remains valuable. Diversifying trade partners, strengthening ties with Europe, engaging Southeast Asia, and building South-South coalitions all enlarge India’s options.The path forward, then, is not an artificial “reset” with Beijing but a sober policy of managed competition. Engage China in multilateral forums, keep trade links open where useful, but hard-wire skepticism into all dealings. Simultaneously, deepen convergence with the US and its allies where interests align, while protecting autonomy through diversification.The temptation to hedge between the US and China is understandable in a world of volatility. Yet India must resist the mirage of an equal partnership with Beijing. Opportunism without realism is strategy’s deadliest trap. To imagine that China, which neither respects nor fears India, can be balanced against the US is to repeat Nehru’s gravest error. History has already taught us the cost of misreading Beijing. We should not pay that price again.The writer serves as Global Goodwill Ambassador for Ukraine