Modi’s tactical tango with Beijing and Moscow

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin last week has generated significant attention in international politics, academia and the media.

The photos and videos of Modi shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin dominated Western news cycles, quickly becoming the defining image of the event.

Some commentators rushed to conclude that a new “axis of upheaval” was born. Many described the scene as heralding a new chapter in the global balance of power, a sign that India was moving closer to China and Russia in defiance of the West.

Others suggested it reflected the mounting pressure from Donald Trump, whose tariff battles and geopolitical bullying have left New Delhi searching for room for a strategic reset.

Such commentary, however, was dramatic but superficial. Modi’s participation was not a historic pivot. It was a tactical adjustment, a temporary performance dictated by immediate political needs at home and calculated hedging abroad, rather than a structural reorientation of India’s foreign policy.

The composition of Modi’s delegation offered the first clue to the strategic thinking behind the Tianjin visit. The absence of Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister and its principal diplomatic strategist since 2015, was a significant detail.

Jaishankar, first as foreign secretary and later as minister, has been the central architect of India’s international engagements under Modi. His absence indicated that the visit was narrow in scope, focused on security management and tactical balancing rather than grand strategy.

This detail undermines the breathless claims that Modi was charting a bold new path. India continues to consider its relationship with Washington invaluable. Despite frustrations, that partnership remains the cornerstone of New Delhi’s international strategy.

Modi’s decision to bring Ajit Doval instead of Jaishankar reinforced the view that Tianjin was about short-term political optics, not long-term statecraft. The urgency behind this maneuver becomes clearer when one looks at India’s domestic political climate. Modi currently governs under immense pressure.

The economy is stumbling. Unemployment has risen to its highest level in decades. Inflation has eroded the purchasing power for ordinary households, making life more difficult for the aam aadmi (ordinary people) whose support Modi once claimed as his political base.

The Indian rupee has sunk against the dollar, undermining confidence. Modi’s own past taunts against the Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh government for presiding over currency depreciation have boomeranged, becoming a source of mockery and criticism from his opponents.

Meanwhile, Indian farmers remain in agitation, staging protests that refuse to subside. Opposition parties, smelling blood, have launched unrelenting attacks on the government over rising prices, growing inequality, corruption, and economic mismanagement. They have also seized on the fiasco of Operation Sindoor, an ill-fated military misadventure, to accuse Modi of recklessness and incompetence.

The government finds itself squeezed both inside and outside the Parliament and on the streets. The Bihar assembly polls early in November this year contribute to the political escalation of stakes. Modi, who has long cast himself as a firm, strongman with a “56-inch chest,” is now the subject of derision and doubt over his leadership. The failure of Operation Sindoor has punctured his image as a bold warrior prime minister domestically.

Even his much-publicized friendship with Trump, once held up as evidence of India’s rising status, became embittered with tariff fights and acrimonious trade wars. With Washington haunting him in nightmares and Beijing looming as an ever-present threat along the border, Modi has no choice but to seek ways to demonstrate strength.

The Tianjin summit gave him just that. He calculated that images of handshakes with Xi and Putin could silence some critics, signal resilience to Trump and allow him to posture as an indispensable global figure at a moment when his domestic standing has wavered badly.

The broader strategic context underscores the intricate nature of India’s relationships with China and Russia. These are not uncomplicated relationships, but problematic, complicated, and ultimately secondary to their Western partnerships.

With China, the past is a burden. The 1962 war, decades of border tensions, Modi’s abandoning of Wuhan and Mahabalipuram understandings, and the bloody Galwan Valley clash in 2020 have left a residue of distrust that no summit handshake can erase.

With Russia, New Delhi has past-based relationships: defense imports and affordable oil purchases remain vital. But Moscow’s war against Ukraine has pushed India into a tightrope walk, balancing between a long-standing seller and its growing equation with Washington.

Trump’s heavy-handed pressure, demanding India “choose sides,” made this balancing more precarious and, paradoxically, made it politically necessary to visit China after seven years. But Modi’s motives were transparent: maintain some leverage, reduce tensions on the border and demonstrate that India is not beholden to a single partner.

Asia’s security landscape today is defined by contesting projects of influence. China extends its reach through the Belt and Road Initiative and the institutional heft of the SCO. The United States counters with its Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Quad, where India sits alongside America, Japan and Australia.

New Delhi refers to its position as “strategic autonomy,” the ability to make decisions independently of other nations, and sometimes “multi-alignment,” the practice of aligning with multiple countries or groups on different issues, but in reality, the balance tilts heavily toward the West.

China and Russia provide tactical options, while the US partnership underpins India’s deterrent posture and economic aspirations. The hierarchy of priorities is clear, and it did not shift in Tianjin.

Four considerations explain why Modi engaged Xi and Putin at this moment. First, India’s security cooperation with the United States is too deep to be abandoned and has come at a very high cost for India. From intelligence-sharing to joint military exercises, this partnership anchors New Delhi’s response to Beijing.

Second, Modi depends on international visibility to reinforce his strongman image at home, especially at times of economic strain and political criticism. Third, India requires continued access to Russian energy and must manage its yawning trade deficit with China.

Fourth, New Delhi must maintain channels of communication so as not to have a repeat of the flare-up on the disputed border, especially since Operation Sindoor revealed India’s inability to fight two-front wars at the same time against Pakistan and China.

These considerations make Modi pragmatic: he cannot be seen as too reliant on Washington, but he also cannot afford to lose the partnership. Hence, the occasional embrace of Xi and Putin becomes an exercise in damage control, not transformation. The strategic thinking behind Modi’s actions should make the audience aware of the available alternatives to Modi for India’s foreign policy decisions.

Western media outlets, eager for drama, portrayed Modi’s appearance in Tianjin as a turning point in India’s foreign policy. That narrative flatters Modi but misrepresents reality. India remains primarily anchored to the United States.

Engagement with China and Russia serves as a supplement, a tactical hedge in moments of vulnerability. Modi is not abandoning the West; he is buying time, mitigating pressures and staging performances for multiple audiences. The handshake diplomacy satisfies domestic constituencies that crave evidence of strength, reassures Moscow of continued relevance and warns Washington not to take India for granted.

Yet beneath the choreography, nothing fundamental has changed. Modi is calculating that once Trump exits the political stage after 2028, India will find an easier path to reset relations with Washington, which remains his government’s top priority.

Unless Modi sidelines Jaishankar—the clearest signal of a genuine strategic shift—claims of a reorientation will remain hollow. Modi kept Jayshankar as a trump card for the revival of India’s relations with the US in a future reset. The Tianjin visit was not a declaration of independence from the West, but rather a reflection of Modi’s political predicament.

Ultimately, Modi’s trip to China reveals more about the fragility of his own position than it does about the future of Asia’s balance of power. Far from unveiling a new geopolitical order, the summit exposed the transactional and tactical character of India’s diplomacy under pressure.

Modi shook hands in Tianjin not because he wanted to rewrite India’s grand strategy, but because he needed a reprieve from domestic criticism and international isolation. The theatrics served their purpose in the short term.

However, they did not alter Jaishankar’s fundamentals: India’s strategic core lies with the West, not with China, and Modi firmly believes this notion. At the same time, its flirtations with China and Russia remain gestures of necessity, opportunistic moves in an increasingly perilous game.

Modi’s performance was thus not the beginning of a historic reset but the latest reminder of how fragile his strongman image has become. If Modi unceremoniously dismisses Jaishankar soon, then you can believe that Modi is serious about India’s strategic reset. Until then, the pro-West status quo will hold.

Bhim Bhurtel is on X at @BhimBhurtel