South Asia remains one of the least integrated regions in the world despite geographical proximity and complementary economic structures. Greater regional trade, improved transport connectivity, cross-border electricity markets, digital payment systems and investment partnerships could substantially reduce external vulnerabilities.
Between 2004 and 2023, India produced roughly five million graduates every year, but graduate employment increased by only around 2.8 million annually. Even fewer obtained salaried employment. Millions are either unemployed or working below their qualifications or in the waiting room for the elusive government job.
Policy instability during the 2015-2024 likely pushed back Sri Lanka’s path towards becoming South Asia’s first High-Income Country. The 2022 financial crisis would never have happened as stable growth during the first half of 2015–2024 would have built enough buffer to weather impact of the Covid pandemic
China’s Belt and Road Initiative - which funded Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port through loans resulting in a 99-year lease to Chinese State-owned enterprise in 2017 due to Colombo’s struggle to service said loans - follows the same expansionary script.
While China’s model may not be directly replicable in a democratic setup like India, the emphasis it places on institutional adaptability, long-term strategic planning, and coordinated governance holds enduring relevance. India’s path will be different—but learning from China’s successes and failures can help shape a more inclusive, resilient, and forward-looking developmental trajectory.
Open war with India is not in China’s interest. It would jeopardize its Belt and Road Initiative, alienate global markets, and push India closer to the United States and other like-minded partners. Moreover, the Himalayan terrain offers no guarantee of quick victory. Still, China might employ limited conflicts or sudden skirmishes to test India’s resolve, create psychological pressure, or distract from internal challenges.
China’s Myanmar policy highlights a core strategic contradiction. While Beijing positions itself as a champion of peace, development, and regional connectivity, yet its explicit support for the military regime entrenches coercive rule to safeguard its strategic and economic interests.
Strategically, the display went beyond the immediate region. The unveiling of long-range nuclear platforms and hypersonic missiles positioned China as a peer competitor to the United States in global deterrence. No longer confined to regional defense, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) signaled its readiness to project power across continents.
The debate in Delhi will inevitably ask whether engagement through the SCO dilutes India’s other partnerships or rewards China without resolving the frontier. That binary misses the point. The right question is: can we turn multilateral statements into Indian payrolls while holding our security lines? The answer is yes, if we focus on execution.
While Wang Yi’s India visit and PM Modi’s upcoming China visit may signal a degree of creeping normalcy at the bilateral level, Beijing’s expanding footprint in South Asia is set to intensify regional competition, requiring careful assessment of its implications for the overall India-China relationship
Over the past decade, India’s strategic landscape has grown increasingly complex. Beijing has not diluted its consistent strategy of constraining India. Whether through deepening ties with Pakistan, or expanding influence in India’s periphery, China’s approach remains adversarial. Beijing’s assertive regional posture underscores the urgency for India to rethink both its economic and security policies.
What began with a coup in 2021 has devolved into a theater for China’s energy security, India’s border anxieties, Russia’s arms sales, and America’s China strategy. Each external actor pursues its narrow interests; none has the incentive to restore genuine stability. The losers, inevitably, are Myanmar’s people.
Chinese emperors, especially those of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, recognized that control over Tibetan Buddhism offered a powerful form of soft power. By leveraging religious authority, they could exert indirect political influence over Buddhist populations beyond China's borders.
Development diplomacy remains India’s strongest soft-power tool in the Indian Ocean. The contrast between India’s low-interest, grant-based infrastructure projects and China’s debt-heavy Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has not gone unnoticed. The Maldivian pivot back to India is partly driven by this contras
It risks turning a bilateral infrastructure issue into a trilateral diplomatic flashpoint, where India would have to thereafter balance its upstream anxieties with downstream responsibilities. In this context, Beijing’s growing hydrological footprint is not only being viewed as a strategic challenge in New Delhi, but also as a potential disruptor of its regional diplomacy in South Asia.
The broader strategic ramifications of the India–UK FTA are profound. It strengthens bilateral cooperation in areas such as defence, technology, renewable energy, and education, reinforcing both countries’ strategic footprints in the Indo-Pacific region.
China’s presence in South Asia has expanded considerably since the launch of the BRI in 2013. Beyond trade and infrastructure, it has emerged as a provider of military hardware and a key influencer in education, media, and policy discourse. China's outreach in smaller South Asian countries is multifaceted, ranging from party-to-party diplomacy to soft power tools like Buddhist cultural ties and influence operations.
In a media interview, Khandu strongly refuted Beijing’s territorial claims and emphasized Arunachal’s historical relationship with Tibet, a nation forcibly occupied by China in the 1950s. He pointed out that Arunachal Pradesh shares roughly 1,200 km of border with Tibet, around 100 km with Bhutan, and 550 km with Myanmar. His remarks were a pointed rebuttal to China’s repeated claims over Arunachal Pradesh, including renaming it as “Zangnan” or “South Tibet.”
The Tibetan diaspora must now take the lead in mobilizing global opinion. The Dalai Lama has issued a clarion call — not only to uphold Tibet’s spiritual and cultural values, but to defend the right of a people to decide their own destiny.
