On the Brink of a Multipolar World, India’s Grand Strategy is Largely Defined by China, Analysts Say

Predicted to be the world’s third largest economy by 2030, India is navigating a world in which China poses the biggest challenge to its ascent.

The Indian flag is seen flying at the High Commission of India in Ottawa on Sept. 20, 2023. The Canadian Press/Patrick Doyle

This article is part of a series titled “India: The Next Five Years.” Conversations with subject experts, thought leaders, innovators, strategists, and diplomats will explore India’s foreign relations and its global outlook from 2024 to 2029.

India, the world’s fastest-growing economy, is also growing in its understanding of itself. As it does so, its “grand strategy”—the way it views its place in the world—is largely defined by China, experts say.

“China looms increasingly large in India’s strategic consciousness,” writes Dhruva Jaishankar in his recently released book, “Vishwa Shastra: India and the World.”

“Indeed, China’s rise is likely the primary factor influencing India’s grand strategy today.”

“Vishwa Shastra,” is a Sanskrit phrase that means “treatise on the world.” The book offers a consolidated, linear analysis of Indian foreign policy from ancient to modern times.

Jaishankar, who serves as executive director of the Washington-based Observer Research Foundation, told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview that there are broadly five objectives to India’s “grand strategy.”

“Strengthening India at home, militarily and economically, is [the] number one priority. [Second is] ensuring a stable neighborhood, which has been a big challenge, but the neighborhood has always, again, been a first priority internationally,” Jaishankar said.

Maintaining a balance of power is India’s third priority. The fourth is to address legacy issues concerning India’s partition, which led to the formation of Pakistan and created larger regional consequences. The fifth is to advocate for India’s adequate participation in global rule-making institutions, he said.

These five objectives have largely defined India’s grand strategy since its independence in 1947. Today’s India has more opportunities and resources to achieve these objectives than it has ever had before, according to Jaishankar.

“India is less on the defensive than in the past. It has more resources than in the past. So that’s good in many respects. It has an ability to modernize. It has an ability to settle some of the issues in its periphery. It has the ability to bypass and isolate Pakistan and things like that.”

Articulating India’s Grand Strategy

Srikanth Kondapalli, dean of the School of International Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), told The Epoch Times that every major power has a grand strategy that defines its trajectory, looking out 20 to 25 years. Along with its planning for economic, technological, and military development, the grand strategy details a country’s national ethos.

An expert on China’s foreign and security policies, Kondapalli said how much of a nation’s grand strategy is disclosed depends upon the purpose ascribed to it by that nation.

“For example, the Americans have the [Quadrennial] Defense Review and national security strategy.  ... The Russians have a strategy like this. The UK has one. China also articulated it in terms of national rejuvenation by 2049, and they have several steps—from up to 2021 up to 2035,” said Kondapalli.

India’s grand strategy has rarely been explicitly articulated, and various authors have attempted to express the country’s vision. Jaishankar’s work attempts to define India’s global impact, exactly 25 years away from the mid-century world. The mid-century is also the timeframe of China’s grand strategy of national rejuvenation, sometimes dubbed “Global China 2049” or “China 2049.”

Kondapalli cited “India 2020,” a 1998 work by India’s former president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Y. S. Rajan. The book outlined a strategy for a developed India looking at the first two decades of the new millennium.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed Indian strategy as “Viksit Bharat 2047.” The phrase “Viksit Bharat,” which means “developed India,” conveys the Indian government’s vision to transform the country into a self-reliant and prosperous economy by 2047.

Kondapalli described the areas defined under Viksit Bharat 2027 as “soft areas of the grand strategy.”

Meanwhile, many of India’s security-related issues are kept guarded and undisclosed, he said. A number of the undisclosed areas concern China.

A Chinese soldier gestures as he stands near an Indian soldier on the Chinese side of the ancient Nathu La border crossing between India and China, on July 10, 2008. Diptendu Dutta/AFP via Getty Images

The Biggest Obstacle—China

Despite its possibilities, India faces many challenges to the achievement of its grand strategy. Looming large among them is China, which analysts define as a major challenge to India’s rise on the world stage.

Geography and history provide the context for the challenge from China. That’s according to Monish Tourangbam, director of the India-based Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies.

“Since its inception in 1949, the Sino–Indian war of 1962 and its rise as a global power in the 21st century, communist China has influenced the conception and operationalization of India’s grand strategy,” Tourangbam told The Epoch Times.

Jaishankar said China challenges each of India’s grand strategy objectives.

“The biggest obstacle in each of these five objectives today, arguably, is China. So China is the biggest obstacle to India’s defense procurement, its technology policy, its trade policy, its industrial policy,” he said.

Kondapalli said that since 2009, India has viewed China as a “long-term threat” to its strategic plans. He defined a short-term threat as one within a timeline of five years, a medium-term as 15 years, and long term as one with a timeline of about 35 years.

India's Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers patrol along the fenced border with Pakistan in Ranbir Singh Pura sector near Jammu, on Feb. 26, 2019. Mukesh Gupta/Reuters

It was in 2009 that the Indian position shifted to fighting a two-front war—meaning against Pakistan and China—“under the nuclear threshold,” he said, “because both are nuclear.”

“But this is the armed forces strategy, rather than national strategy,” he said, adding that India faces tremendous challenges from China from all other fronts.

Kondapalli said that within India’s grand strategy, the China factor is “uncertain or even negative” due to its territorial dispute with India. He said this dispute is long-term.

“This is not going to be resolved [in the short term]. So you have to factor China in the territorial dispute in the grand strategy,” he said.

Jaishankar cited active competition from China in India’s neighborhood—in countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Meanwhile, the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific has also been altered by China’s rise. India is working with other countries to counter that, he added.

Even in international institutions, China is trying to block India’s ascent, he noted.

“China is ultimately the main power most responsible for blocking, say, U.N. Security Council reform, India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group on certain trade issues, and things like that. There is a conflict of interest,” he said.

India’s role in global institutions is increasing. Throughout its 2023 presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) international forum, it played a crucial role in an expanded BRICS and in other platforms of global governance, according to Tourangbam.

However, China is using a two-pronged approach to challenge that increasing influence, he said.

“China’s challenge to India’s rise in global institutions is both ideational and material,” Tourangbam said. India’s democracy and its inclusive model of global governance make it appealing, he said. However, China’s sheer economic size and influence are a challenge for New Delhi to navigate in global institutions.

China’s grand strategy is to be number one: to replace the United States, in particular. Beijing also wants to be number one in Asia, Kondapalli said. But there are powers in Asia—India, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam—that can compete for that influence and do not want China to mitigate their footprint.

“China’s role in South Asia, Southeast Asia, where it wants to marginalize India, is not acceptable to India,” he said. India’s grand strategy will thus include countering the Chinese grand strategy vis-a-vis territorial issues and competition in Asia.

There are many elements of the strategy, he noted. One element is the QUAD alliance between India, the United States, Japan, and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Another is Exercise Malabar—joint maritime military exercises between the QUAD countries. Another element is the individual Free Trade Agreements between India and various nations.

And yet another is the recent Modi–Trump meeting. Of that, Kondapelli said, “what transpired we don’t know.”

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting in the Oval Office, on Feb. 13, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Looking Toward a Multipolar World

With its rapid economic growth, India is forecast to be the world’s third-largest economy by 2030, behind the United States and China.

Jaishankar described three global schools of thought—unipolarity, bipolarity, and multipolarity—viewed from the perspectives of the three likely leading global economies over the next two decades: the United States, China, and India.

The academic terms describe three systems of geopolitical power distribution. A unipolar world is dominated by one power; a bipolar world is dominated by two major powers, and in a multipolar world, power is distributed among several states. 

India’s grand strategy needs to be understood in the context of expectations that it will make the list of top global powers in the near future, he said.

The United States “is number one,” Jaishankar said. “In an ideal world, the U.S. wants a unipolar world. It has a pure competitor in China today.”

Meanwhile, China—despite its long-term ambition for a unipolar world in which it is number one—acknowledges the bipolarity of today’s world. Its ambition to be the leading global power does not contradict that acknowledgment.

“When China says it wants a new type of great power relationship or talks of avoiding the Thucydides Trap, it is actually acknowledging a bipolar world, but asking the U.S. not to contest it,” Jaishankar said. The Thucydides Trap is the theory—popularized by Harvard scholar Graham Allison—that when a rising global power threatens a ruling one, war frequently results.

Further, “India, being number three, wants a multipolar [world],” he said. “So I think part of it just depends on where they sit.” 

While China supports multilateralism on certain issues and forums, Tourangban said, its support is aimed at blunting America’s influence.

India, on the other hand, aims to create a more inclusive global order, he said.

“India wants to create an externally conducive security environment for its economic rise, and its support for a multipolar world order recognizes the interdependence of economies. Expanding its basket of economic partners, without jeopardizing its core security interests, lies at the heart of India’s support for effective multilateralism in a multipolar world,” he said.

With India’s imminent rise as the third largest global economy, a new global economic paradigm will evolve, according to Jaishankar.

The U.S. economy is currently worth over $30 trillion. The Chinese economy is worth over $19 trillion. India is currently the fifth-largest global economy. It is expected to steal Japan’s fourth-place spot in the next year or so. And, according to a report from S&P Global Ratings, by 2030, India is expected to surpass $7 trillion and become the world’s third-largest economy.

Nonetheless, “there [will] be a big gap between the U.S. and China, on the one hand, and between China and India on the other,” Jaishankar said. There will also emerge a big gap between India and everyone else on that list, he said. But precisely by virtue of that gap, India will play a leading role in a multipolar world, he said.

The situation will secure a unique place for India, Jaishankar said. India will guard that place to prevent its interests from being marginalized in decision-making by the United States and China. 

“India will strive for a more multipolar world, which means a world where everything is not simply decided by the U.S. and China. I think that’s a great, good concern for India,” he said.

How India will secure and advance its interests in a multipolar world order will be a “test of fire” for India’s grand strategy, said Tourangbam.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive for a family photo during the BRICS summit in Kazan on Oct. 23, 2024. Maxim Shipenkov/POOL/AFP

India’s Role in World Order

When asked what role India would play in facilitating a multipolar world, Jaishankar listed a number of objectives.

Those include taking a leadership role in Southeast Asia, securing the Indian Ocean, connecting with its neighbors and with the Middle East, and using “carrots and sticks” to coax Pakistan away from supporting terror groups.

They also include managing India’s relationship with China in a way that promotes competition but doesn’t lead to conflict, according to Jaishankar.

Delving into this further, Kondapalli explained that India’s approach to multilateral forums is led by its interests.

Both India and China are a part of various common multilateral forums. It’s assumed that they are not there to discuss bilateral issues or sovereignty issues, he said. Instead, their involvement implies that problems can be resolved through confidence-building measures and peaceful strategies.

Multilateral forums can be useful for advancing bilateral issues. Kondapalli cited a subtle approach by India on multilateral platforms—one example being the meeting between Modi and China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan last year.  The two leaders decided to let their national security advisers discuss their territorial dispute.

“And then we saw some forward momentum in this regard,” he said.

Jaishankar emphasized that India’s thought leadership in a multipolar world would involve working with balancing powers, like the United States, Japan, Australia, and others, to “diversify and strengthen” supply chains.

It would also mean countering China by diversifying Indian strategic interests. Having many strategic or economic partners would ensure that if China threatened to cut off supply chains or investment, it would not unduly affect India, he said.