Xi undercut the West by negotiating a truce in China’s long feud with India

“This explains why it remains part of multilateral groupings with contradictory goals,” said Praveen Donthi, a South Asia analyst with the Eurasia Group in Washington, DC, pointing to both its membership of the US-aligned Quad and China-dominated BRIC group.

The truce comes with China on the back foot diplomatically, said Panda, pointing to its damaged relations with Europe and the US after its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“One could draw a conclusion at this point that probably the Chinese are more interested to rebuild the ties with India than the other way round,” said Panda.

He said there’s also the possibility that Xi has reached an agreement with Modi behind the scenes for India to remain silent if China acts on its longstanding ambition to seize back control of Taiwan.

Such a move would likely draw in the US and its other regional allies, who have pledged to help defend Taiwan’s independence.

“I think China’s bigger ambition and target is the Taiwan issue, and therefore they would not really like to continue the kind of tensions they were engaged in with India for the last three to four years,” he said.

“Therefore, they would like to rebuild, and they would like to ensure that India does not react to the Taiwan issue so sensitively.”

In any case, its a setback in US attempts to include India in a deeper security alliance, he said.

“For a long time, the US has tried to develop security and defense ties with India,” said Panda.

For the time being, a truce suits both Russian and Chinese interests, Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said. But, he added, tensions remain.

He said that though both parties have opened discussions about the border dispute, the underlying problem remains unresolved, and future flare-ups are likely.

Donthi said the progress between the leaders could also be derailed if tensions between the US and China increase.

“This comes as a relief after four years of eyeball-to-eyeball troop deployment in the Himalayas. However, it’s only the beginning,” he said.