How a Border Dispute Bedevils Ties Between India and China

China and India, nuclear-armed neighbors, have had thousands of troops facing off in a disputed region of the Himalayas since 2020, when skirmishes led to the first deadly clashes in four decades. New Delhi has hit back economically as well by blocking investment and curtailing access to the vast Indian market for Chinese tech firms especially. Several rounds of talks to resolve the dispute have made incremental progress. Any resolution likely would do little to affect broader geopolitical currents, however. The US and its allies have been seeking to draw India closer into a democratic coalition as a bulwark against China’s growing clout, while China is seeking allies in its efforts to counter what it sees as Western hegemony.

In 2020, China surprised India by deploying troops in Ladakh, a remote part of northernmost India abutting Tibet (an autonomous region of China). The 3,488 kilometer (2,167 miles) border is not demarcated on the ground and the reason for the maneuver remains unclear. But earlier actions by India regarding the territories of Ladakh, whose people are culturally close to Tibet and Kashmir, had drawn angry responses from China, which accused India of seeking “to undermine its territorial sovereignty.”