India-China ties stuck in 1962 and Galwan memories, scholars say
A former Indian foreign secretary and a leading Chinese academic said the 1962 war and the 2020 Galwan clash still shape how Asia’s two biggest economies see each other, blocking trust after decades of diplomacy.
Source: South China Morning Post · August 16, 2026 at 10:28 PM · AI-assisted report
Corroborated
KUALA LUMPUR, 17 AUGUST 2026 —
A former Indian foreign secretary and a leading Chinese academic said the 1962 war and the 2020 Galwan clash still shape how Asia’s two biggest economies see each other, blocking trust after decades of diplomacy.
Market Impact
Nirupama Rao, India’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2011 and its first woman ambassador to China, told the South China Morning Post the 1962 conflict and the Galwan fatalities remain open wounds. “The events of 1962 and all the histories written about it have left deep scars,” she said. “The change in Indian opinion was not manufactured by politicians or the media.
It arose because Indians felt the understandings painstakingly built over 3½ decades had been disrupted.”
Lin Minwang, professor and vice-dean at Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies, said Beijing faces a mirror image at home. “More Chinese people now see India as chaotic and unreliable,” he said. “Many Chinese observers look at India’s democracy as disorderly and diversity as weakness, while Indians view these qualities as sources of resilience.” Both scholars argued that without deeper mutual understanding, strategic empathy is impossible.
The border dispute remains the most visible fracture. Lin said Beijing insists it is willing to settle the boundary question but only if New Delhi accepts China’s position. “If the Indian position is not going to change, China will have no negotiation room,” he said. Rao countered that treating the dispute separately from other areas of cooperation has failed to restore trust. “There is a fundamental lack of trust between the two countries,” she said.
History, they agreed, is a heavy anchor. Lin noted that India’s national identity has long framed China as an expansionist power, a narrative reinforced by textbooks and political rhetoric. “The history of 1962 has become an important part of India’s national identity,” he said.
“Changing this perception would require rewriting narratives that are deeply rooted.” Rao, author of The Fractured Himalaya: India, Tibet, China 1949–1962, argued that both sides need to revisit the 1962 tragedy with greater honesty. “Both countries must understand what went into that tragedy much more deeply,” she said.
The scholars also differed on the role of third parties. Rao said India’s growing ties with the United States are a pragmatic response to China’s rise, not an ideological alignment. “India has engaged with the US as a natural partner in a multipolar world,” she said. “This is part of our foreign policy realism, not hostility toward China.” Lin, however, framed the US factor as a complicating element.
“India’s ties with the US have added another layer of complexity to the relationship,” he said, without elaborating.
Both acknowledged that the relationship has weathered crises before only to lapse back into suspicion. Rao pointed to the quiet border between 1988 and 2020, when engagement was tempered by realism despite the unsettled boundary. “We had sought to build confidence even as the boundary remained unsettled,” she said. “But trust cannot exist independently—experience intervenes.”
For Malaysian companies, the standoff shows why supply chains that stretch from China to India face recurring disruption. Investors must weigh policy swings in both capitals that can break trade links overnight; without a durable framework for dialogue, today’s détente can vanish at the next flare-up.
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