Every diplomatic correspondent in the Western and Asian press is hyperventilating over the prospect of a Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping handshake at the upcoming BRICS summit. They frame it as the monumental thaw between Asia's two nuclear-armed titans, obsessing over bilateral trade imbalances, buffer zones along the Line of Actual Control, and the grand architecture of multipolarity. It is diplomatic pornography for centrist pundits who desperately need a narrative of orderly global governance.
They are entirely wrong.
I have spent the better part of two decades watching foreign ministries spin routine multilateral pageantry into historical turning points. I have seen corporations reallocate billions based on optimistic communiques that meant nothing the morning after the cameras stopped rolling. The lazy consensus dominating international relations commentary claims that if New Delhi and Beijing can patch up their border dispute and boost trade, the Asian century locks into place.
That view ignores the structural reality of how these two states actually operate. Modi and Xi are not looking for a reset; they are managing a permanent, structural rivalry. Trade metrics and troop withdrawals at Depsang or Demchok do not signal friendship. They signal cold, hard risk management by two leaders who realize open warfare is bad for GDP, but who view each other as existential threats to regional hegemony.
The Trade Mirage
Let us dismantle the trade obsession first. Pundits point to bilateral commerce hovering near record highs as proof that economic gravity overrides geopolitical friction. This ignores the composition of that trade and the acute asymmetry driving it.
India runs a massive, structural trade deficit with China, importing critical active pharmaceutical ingredients, heavy machinery, and electronics components that form the backbone of Indian manufacturing. New Delhi has spent the last five years trying to decouple its supply chains through Production-Linked Incentive schemes, tariffs, and direct bans on Chinese applications and foreign direct investment.
When Modi shakes hands with Xi at a BRICS summit, it does not mean India is throwing open its doors to Chinese tech firms or dropping its guard against predatory dumping. It means Indian conglomerates need intermediate goods to keep factories running while the state builds domestic alternatives. Beijing knows this. New Delhi knows this. Pretending this transactional necessity is a sign of detente is journalistic malpractice.
The Border is a Managed Burn
Then there is the border. The lazy narrative treats the 2020 Galwan Valley clash as an aberration that can be ironed out with enough buffer zones and commander-level talks.
Think of the Line of Actual Control not as a border waiting for a treaty, but as a permanent, low-intensity pressure valve. Both sides have permanently forward-deployed tens of thousands of troops, built all-weather roads, underground hangars, and artillery positions that cannot simply be packed up because of a photo-op in a convention center.
Xi does not care about minor grazing rights in Ladakh; he cares about Indian alignment with the United States, the Quad, and the broader containment architecture Washington is building in the Indo-Pacific. Modi does not care about minor diplomatic wins at a summit dominated by Beijing's currency ambitions; he cares about preventing China from establishing a unipolar Asia where India is reduced to a tributary state.
A brief chat on the sidelines of a BRICS photo session will not alter these tectonic imperatives. The militarization of the Himalayan frontier is the new normal. Get used to it.
The BRICS Illusion
We also need to talk about BRICS itself, an acronym dreamed up by a Goldman Sachs economist to sell emerging market funds, which has somehow mutated into an anti-Western geopolitical bloc.
Western media treats BRICS as an existential challenge to the G7 and the US dollar. That is a fantasy pushed by Beijing to project strength and by cash-strapped developing nations looking for leverage against Western lenders. In reality, BRICS is a talk shop with zero enforcement mechanisms, plagued by deep internal contradictions.
China wants to use BRICS to internationalize the yuan and build an alternative financial clearinghouse that insulates Beijing from Western sanctions. India wants no part of a Chinese-led monetary bloc. New Delhi’s entire foreign policy strategy is built on multi-alignment—taking cheap Russian oil, buying American defense tech, partnering with Japan in the Quad, and keeping BRICS loose enough so it never becomes a Beijing-dominated Warsaw Pact.
When Modi sits at the same table as Xi, he is not building a unified anti-Western coalition. He is hedging. He is ensuring India has a voice in the room where the Global South organizes, precisely to prevent China from hijacking the narrative.
What Actually Matters
If you want to understand where India-China relations are heading, ignore the joint statements about mutual respect and win-win cooperation. Watch the naval deployments in the Indian Ocean. Watch the semiconductor investments in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Watch the pace of Indian infrastructure buildout along the northern border.
The rivalry between the world's two most populous nations is structural, permanent, and zero-sum in its strategic dimensions. A choreographed smile at a multilateral summit changes none of the math. Stop reading tea leaves into diplomatic etiquette and start looking at the balance sheets and the munitions stockpiles.
